


Walk Home, Run Home

by ApocalypseMarried



Category: The Walking Dead (TV)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-04-10
Updated: 2016-03-30
Packaged: 2018-03-22 05:20:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 11
Words: 49,596
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3716638
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ApocalypseMarried/pseuds/ApocalypseMarried
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>With nothing but a hole in her head and a shredded nightmare of a life left to her, Beth goes back to the beginning, following ghosts. Meanwhile, Daryl keeps a fragile hold on reasons to live, and returns to what he left behind, following the light. (Will probably stay T. Probably.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Home Is Nowhere

"Did you hear the news?" Aaron has a way of reading Daryl that manages to be both comfortable and mildly alarming. He watches him carefully as he speaks. He doesn't say 'good' news, the way that a lot of other people would. He understands that to Daryl it's not good news or bad news until it proves itself. It's just news, and maybe it's leaning towards bad for reasons that Aaron doesn't dismiss, no matter how tempting.

"'Bout Maggie?" Daryl guesses, stomping out his cigarette and watching the ashes flutter towards the spokes of his bike.

"Maggie and Glenn," Aaron shrugs, judicious, as always, he pauses in packing up the trunk, and looks at Daryl square, gaging a reaction, like maybe it's worse than he thought.

_I guess he's got something to do with it._ Daryl nods, and because it's Aaron he doesn't have to fake excitement, or hide worry, or every say anything about it. He knows. It means things.

"While we're out there, we should keep an eye out for baby things," Aaron is practical like that, but there's a warmth in his voice that gives away hope for the best.

"Yeah," he's long past trying to ignore the ache, he just lets it rest right where it belongs, pressing against his shoulders and into his chest, like someone wrapped around him, squeezing. He's got more practice at hope these days, but he's no expert, awkwardly, he tries his hand at a little optimism, "I 'spose we'd need that stuff sooner or later…" but he trails off, realizing that he's already imagining everything going wrong, Maggie dying before the baby can come to term. The baby being born but not thriving. Maggie dying like Lori did.

_Sometime, it will work. Sometime, for someone._ That's as much hope as he can get. Wanting it to work for Maggie and Glenn is a dearest hope, but it makes him angry, the more he wants something, the bloodier it ends.

"Exactly," says Aaron with a small smile. "I'm just going to go say goodbye to Eric and then we'll head out. Maybe, ten minutes?"

Daryl nods him off, hands in his pockets. He's not looking forward to this trip. Usually, he can't wait to get outside of these walls. But going back _there?_

He and Glenn had exchanged some sharp words about it, the night before when he told Daryl that Maggie was pregnant. They didn't part on good terms. Looking up, Daryl sees Glenn down the street, making a beeline towards him, "Ah, shit," he grumbles. The man just can't leave well enough alone, he's got to try and what? Mend fences?

Daryl snorts. He and Glenn aren't like neighbors who've gotta work out their differences to keep the peace. Daryl would die for Glenn, and Glenn would die for Daryl. He ain't worried about leaving for weeks with them mad at each other, but Glenn would be. He'd worry.

It's plain on his face that he wants to kiss and make-up before Daryl dives back into the wild. His face is hard as he nears Daryl, lips in a thin line. "Hey." He glances at the gate.

"What do ya gotta say, Glenn?" Daryl put out his cigarette too damn soon, it's glaring up at him from the ground, knowing that he regrets discarding it.

With a sigh, that ends with a locked jaw, Glenn gives away his continued anger. "You've gotta snap out of this, Daryl."

" _I_ gotta?!" Daryl flares up at that, "It ain't me who's got the problem." But he knows that's horseshit.

"It's been almost a month and we've been lucky. Nothing Rosita couldn't handle, but this community _needs_ a Doctor. We only know of one left in the world. Now Maggie's pregnant. Do you really want her to go through that like Lori did?"

_Fuck! Don't drag that into this._ Daryl just shakes his head, jaw grinding. It was a completely different situation. But not different enough. Guilt starts to creep in. _"Look I said I'll go back, so I don't know what else you want from me?"_ Daryl barely separates his teeth as he spits his words out.

"I want you to understand _why_ it's important. I want you to think about that. Why did _I_ have to be the one to bring up Grady to Aaron, Daryl? It's your job here to look for people. You know about the hospital."

"They ain't good people."

"Well—they aren't cannibals!" both Glenn's hands slap against his thighs in exasperation. "Look, I get it. They aren't my first choice either—except they are, because there's no one else! We clashed and it was _bad_ , but they aren't monsters. They're trying to live some kind of organized life and maybe they just need a place like this to— _Rick was going to let them come with us!"_

Daryl shakes his head hard against every word. "What if it had been Maggie? _Would you ever go back there again?"_

The silence that follows rings like a church bell and Daryl can't breathe. He wants to look away from Glenn's face as something shatters behind his eyes. As he realizes what Daryl is saying. What he hasn't brought himself to say yet. Mouth open, Glenn can't respond right away.

Scoffing lightly, Daryl turns and kicks at the cigarette butt already ground into the dirt. "Nah, you wouldn't."

"Maybe not," Glenn admits quietly, "But... think about the prison, and everything bad that happened there. We got Tara out of it."

It ain't the same thing at all and he knows it, but Daryl doesn't call him out, he just glares at him. The man's smart enough to work it out for himself. The truth is, Daryl wanted to make his way back into Georgia for one reason only. At no point did his plans involve returning to Grady to let Aaron talk those bastards into joining up with Alexandria.

"Just, please. Think about the baby."

"I said I'd go, Glenn," Daryl barely speaks.

"Thank you. But that's not good enough. Don't just go. Make it a mission. We need a Doctor, and I think you need this." Whatever Glenn means by that, Daryl isn't willing to ask, he looks at the dirt until Glenn finally retreats, leaving Daryl alone with his bike and a long road ahead.

* * *

An alarm rings. But it's not _The Animals_ rendition of _House of the Rising Sun_ , which is disappointing to Beth because she thought it was a clever choice for an alarm. She tries to grope for her cellphone, but sleep hasn't quite let her free yet, her fingers barely move and besides, that's not her cell-phone alarm waking her up. It's a high, demanding pulse of a ring, more like a chirp. Maybe it's coming from another room? With a groan she tries to move again, head pounding. More than just her fingers are twitching now, but her whole body feels heavy and sore, like she slept all tied up in a knot.

It's dark. Maybe it's daddy's alarm. He'll want help with chores before school. Mom will come in the room in a minute. Slowly, Beth opens her eyes to nothing and starts to sit up. It's warm but there are no blankets. Her throat is dry, she's inside of a small, tight box and her head throbs in pain.

Panic happens all at once, her own whimper is louder than the car alarm—and now that she can tell what it is, not her father's old-fashioned alarm-clock telling him to get up, but a shrieking car alarm, maybe a few blocks away. It's so dark, and the shape of this box it odd and solid.

She kicks out a leg and reaches up with one arm. Her hand is in a cast that clunks against the low, metal ceiling. Her foot connects with something softer. On the ground below her, knuckles brush with a solid metal tool, a crowbar. She freezes and takes in the tight surroundings. She's shut inside of a trunk and for some reason she remembers exactly how it feels, even though she knows she's never been shut inside of a trunk before.

_This is familiar. Why is this familiar?_

Her eyes aren't adjusting to the dark, but she manages to figure out which side is the back-seat and which side is the lid of the trunk. The lid won't budge, but feeling around on the floor she manages to find the lever to pop open the seat.

_Please work._ The seat does pop open and light floods in, harsh, golden light. It must be high noon.

It isn't until Beth climbs into the backseat of what turns out to be a black Honda Accord and sits stunned, blinking into burning white light that she realizes she hasn't let go of the crowbar. She's still clutching it in the hand that doesn't have a cast, the thought of putting it down makes her feel fearful and shaken, so she doesn't, she grips it like a lifeline as she blinks and her vision clears.

"Where am I?" there's no one to answer, but she wants to hear her own voice, if only to know she can still speak. As her vision clears she grazes past ruby-tinted windows, climbs out of the car and falls onto a long, deserted road in need of repair.

A ways down the road, there's an overturned firetruck, painted in what looks horribly like blood and similar carnage. Even from this distance, she can see that the windows are smeared with gore. The firetruck is such an imposing disaster that it takes a few seconds for her to notice that there are other cars, also painted red, and stopped in the middle of the road, no regard to obstructing traffic.

It's like she's been shoved into a game of 'name everything that's wrong with this picture' how many points is it worth to notice that all the cars are facing the wrong way on the highway? Opposing traffic catches her eye. It's stopped dead, and every single car seems to be deserted. Ages ago, by the state of them.

Gripping the crowbar now with both hands, her cast crunches around it, but can't stop herself. The alarm in the distance whines to a stop. Dead battery. Her shoulder itches. Passing the crowbar into her injured hand, she reaches back she finds that there's something dried there, it flakes off. There's dried blood under her nails and that's when she realizes how sticky it is back there, how it's trailing through her hair, but she's afraid to follow it up to the source. She knows it's coming from her head. Tentatively, she touches, just next to the concentration of a dull ache. It's not bleeding, but she definitely took some kind of a bad blow to the head.

And nothing is familiar, or makes sense.

_Except being inside a trunk._ Upon remembering how strange it was to be locked inside a dark trunk and feel like she'd been there before, an image comes to her, accompanied by a feeling. She's folded up, sitting inside of a large trunk, there's a flash of silver before her face, the blade of a knife. She's not alone, there's a man sitting across from her. Something's happening outside, something loud and angry, like a storm. Light spills inside the trunk through the busted lid, illuminating the light and pair of focused blue eyes.

That's Atlanta in the distance. But it can't be. It's… dead.

There's no other way to describe it. Even from this distance Beth can tell it's lifeless. If she walked towards it, she would just find more of the same. More cars. More broken things. More gore.

_What happened? Is this hell?_ She doesn't remember dying, but maybe she wouldn't. Beth isn't sure what she would've done to earn herself a place in hell, or why hell would look like Atlanta's corpse, but she doesn't have much to go on.

_The last thing I remember…_ but it's escaping her. She doesn't have a "last thing" to call up, just general feelings of looking forward to a birthday, wondering how quick she can get chores done, before daddy will let her go on a ride. Trying to work out how to put a little distance between herself and Jimmy without making everything awkward. Annoyance with school. Pleasure in putting together a new playlist. Normal things.

Nothing, nothing at all that might lead her to understand a grave head wound and a hand that doesn't want to let go of a crowbar. Let alone, something to help her understand the state of this world she's just woken up in.

_Why am I alone?_ She's forgotten things. She's forgotten about being in trunks, but she remembers blue eyes and feeling safe, in spite of a storm.

A shuffling, strange kind of snarling sound alerts her attention away from Atlanta. Nearby the firetruck, she sees a person, standing droopily in the middle of the road. "HEY!" she shouts and starts at a quick pace towards the figure, "Help! I need help!" her voice almost breaks, as fear floods into her that she can't explain to herself.

The person turns and shuffles towards her, and the awkward, gaiting halt of a walk gives her pause, "Are you okay?!" he can't be, he's definitely hurt and he's covered in… grey. Dirt and dust coat him. The closer he gets, the uglier and filthier he appears. "Oh my—" the fear is almost overwhelming as the person lets out a snarl, his jaw is broken, dangling an inch above a collarbone. Long, threatening limbs outstretch towards her. His skin is sliding off, exposing rotting bone.

He gets right up into her face and she doesn't even think, she doesn't have to. Her body knows what to do, even if her mind it still fixated on this image of living, death, hungry and driven. The crowbar flies up through the dangling flesh of his broken jaw, up through the soft palate and into the middle of its head, brain-stem pulverized.

In shock, Beth stares at the dead thing; so mangled and decayed that it had to be dead before she knee-jerk shoved the crowbar into its head.

_"I got him like this, up through the jaw!"_ Maggie's voice comes to her, a hushed whisper from long ago. Her pretty big sister has a face splattered in red, but she grins with tears in her eyes, _"The men were all still shoving at their chests and trying to stab through body-armor,"_ Maggie smiles into her elbow, green eyes laughing as she twirls the dagger in her hand, clean except where the hilt meets the blade.

The body drops and Beth takes a few steps back, the bloody crowbar slapping against her thigh, as she takes in a few stinking breaths and tries not to think about how weak her knees suddenly are.

Maggie. Maggie who kills walkers. Beth who kills walkers too, but only after watching Maggie and… and others. There are others, but their faces won't stay still inside her head.

Walkers are everywhere, they're people—or they're what people become now, when they die. That's why the world is like this. How long has it been like this?

The world feels like a nightmare, bewildering and frightening, but slowly Beth finds what she needs to inside her head, she remembers walkers, but doesn't remember how it started, or when it started. She doesn't remember who became walkers. She examines her shaking hand, but it's definitely alive.

Beth is no walker. Yet.

_Why am I alone? Where's daddy and mom? Where's Maggie? Shawn? What about Otis and Patricia?_

The weakest and youngest of them. If she's not with them, they must think she's dead. That much doesn't take a lot of thinking for her to work out. She's got to find them, and there's only one place she can remember where she saw them all. In her mind, the Greene Family Farm is heaven, as opposed to hell where she woke up.

Atlanta is dead. The road is long. Home is that way.


	2. Desecrated

Her body is different. Beth notices this almost instantly but doesn't appreciate it, until she has to run. There are too many walkers. She takes down two of them and sees seven more filtering through the trees, and so she shifts from fight to flight, as simple as whirling around on her heel.

The body that she'd come to know so well, that was so soft and well-cared for, has changed. She's harder, stronger, she can feel old injuries, patches of scar tissue that keen as her legs move her smoothly and quietly through the woods.

This stranger's body she's inside of has made a home of the wild.

Beth is fast. Much faster than she remembers. Her body is used to running like this. Her legs are powerful. Her worn boots don't trip her up. Her lungs pull deep.

Walkers don't get tired, but they're slow, they're breaking apart little by little. Beth only gets stronger.

Her stomach has shrunk. She doesn't feel hunger in that old way. She doesn't feel like she needs to eat throughout the day, only when her body tells her. All the same, she keeps an eye out for anything that might indicate food or, more importantly, a water source.

The world is all misshapen around her. The main road is damaged, open and terrifying, but the woods are dark and unknown. Neither option seems right. She follows the road like a river, keeping it in sight without diving in, but she isn't willing to cut straight through the trees.

Beth hurries, runs when she can, until she's too tired and she knows that she needs to rest. She doesn't know how long it's been since she's eaten, and with running and the injuries she still doesn't understand, she doesn't want to push herself.

Thirst hits her hard and with it comes memories.

 _"From a toilet?"_ she giggles, but takes the water-bottle offered to her.

The boy who handed it to her is clear in her mind for a split second. He wears a sheriff's hat and a ruby blush, _"From the top part only…"_ he shrugs and somehow she knows he's lying, but she drinks anyway. They can't boil it, because they can't afford a fire right now, but she saw her daddy put a few drops of bleach in earlier.

 _Why can't we afford a fire?_ Frustrated, Beth halts with a drunken stumble, a vague plan in her mind inspired by the memory. She's covered a lot of ground, but she's getting faint. The sky is dark. She wants to chase her memories, wants to know who she is now and how the change happened. Images and voices are stuck in her head like jagged pieces of glass. The important parts are missing.

Abandoned cars crowd the road, gathered together for some misguided exodus. The journey home in a car would've taken maybe an hour in rough traffic.

When she sees a car that looks like it could still function she searches for keys, but even the one time she finds a spare up in the visor, it's no use. The car has been sitting far too long to run without a mechanics touch. On foot the world is stretched out.

A ways ahead, gray figures sway. She's starting to move like them as exhaustion takes her. So badly, she wants to get home today. She knows it was too far to travel in a single day, without supplies and with the dead in her path.

Murky puddles mock her. If it hadn't been for the threat of dysentery she might have given in. The sky roils once or twice but never drops rain.

A dirt path up ahead veers towards what promises to be private property. The cars have been stripped of anything useful. All the glove boxes hang open, doors left spread. The houses will probably be just as bad, but maybe she could find a toilet and at least get some water, as the mysterious boy in the sheriff's hat suggests in one of her precious memories. She'll just have to risk a fire, unless she can remember why fire is a problem sometimes.

The house she finds looks like a mugging victim, left to bleed out in the road. The walls are blackened and the windows broken. It's two stories of someone's tomb, but she doesn't feel like an intruder as she walks past the gate and onto the property. She feels her steps slow as she approaches the front porch, notices how her breathing suddenly drops to an inaudible stream through her dry, cracked lips. Her hands are tense around the crowbar.

All day, whenever she killed a walker and didn't need to run right away, she would check it for weapons. At first, she didn't even realizes what she was doing. The corpse would fall and she would drop to her knees automatically to look in all the usual places. She found one pocket-knife and some matches, but nothing better than the crowbar left in the trunk with her. She raises the crowbar at the ready, kicking the front door open loudly. She waits and doesn't hear anything, the tension in her shoulders eases.

Even without remembering exactly why, she can feel what she's supposed to do. Don't rush in. Wait. Listen. Make sure it's really deserted. A knocking in her head makes her recall knuckles and firm palms at various timber and strength against doorframes. _Shave and a hair cut._ She knocks her cast against the frame but doesn't hear a two _bits response_ , or anything else for that matter. The house is as dead as everything else she's seen so far since opening her eyes and tumbling into this grey epoch.

The sun was at high noon when she woke up, now it's dark and she hasn't seen another living soul.

 _There have to be others._ She remembers feeling that dread, that fear, but not this bad.

_Why did I wake up alone?_

The water in the toilet has been taken, or evaporated, or otherwise gone. Her throat is in pain, dry. Her head pounds. Dehydration probably isn't doing anything to help the wound.

 _Please, God, just a little water._ Her prayer is answered in the form of a forgotten water-heater, behind a swollen door that needs to be pried away from the wall with the crowbar before she can get to it.

In the kitchen she digs through cupboards to find something to boil the water in. Pots and saucepans are all gone, but pushed in the back, she finds a frying pan. It's even nice, clearly never used. Ribbon is looped through the handle with a small note _Congrats Robbie and Tiana! Love Bri._

Slowly, Beth unties and pulls the green ribbon off the handle. Struck by the odd sight of her filthy and scratched up hands with something so pretty wrapped around them.

Outside, she stoops down to build a fire. Even her hand with the cast knows what to do. She begins to dig awkwardly into the earth, acting without her understanding how or where she learned this. As if in answer to the question, she looks down at her hands in forming hole and came faintly picture another pair of larger hands working the soil with her.

 _"Do it right, and the light won't get so high. They won't see it,"_ the voice is gruff and unfamiliar, but there's something comforting about it. Another one of the others that she can't quite remember, like the boy in the hat. But, this is a grown man teaching her how to build a fire. His hands are large and calloused. Knuckles, still raw and swollen ominously from some bloody boxing match brush her own, as he helps her by shoveling the topsoil up and out of the small pit. She falters at his rough touch, in the memory and in the lonely yard of the desecrated home where she's planning to spend the night.

The water is still hot when she drinks it. Three pans full and she decides to look for something to carry more, for when she finishes her journey tomorrow. The cupboards are bare of food. The glasses are all broken. In a drawer she finds two ancient baby's bottles, for children that… She cringes, first thinking they were grown and then realizing they were more than likely dead. No cracks in the plastic. They'll work. She fills them both and puts them in a backpack from one of the hall closets, prepared to leave at a moment's notice, she realizes.

All the mirrors are cracked. She wants to use the broken pieces to get a better look at the back of her head, where all the pain and stickiness seems to be concentrated, but it's too dark. It will have to wait until she has sunlight to help.

Another instinctive precaution, she looks for a closet with heavy doors to sleep in. Outside the window in the guest room, something catches her eye in the moonlight. It looks like a blackberry bush. The fire caught it, and it's struggling to grow back. It's making progress, but it's the wrong time of year for fruit.

Blackberries in winter happened inside a greenhouse. It was Christmas.

She remembers the ceiling above them, broken, letting the cold inside. It must have just happened, because nothing has been killed by the cold yet.

 _"They'll be so happy when they see these!"_ she says excitedly and her body is more like how it used to be. She's sore, not used to living out in the wild yet, but she feels happy right now, in spite of hardship. She has something to be grateful for. She has blackberries. _"Carl, go get Rick."_ This must be a long time ago. Her hands aren't so strong or scarred. She's got a handful of berries that she drops into the boy's hat.

He's called Carl. _Of course he is._ With the name in her mind a flood of unexpected emotions runs through her a strong breeze. Sweet Carl. Carl who is so brave. Who wants to be the perfect son. She doesn't remember meeting Carl, but she remembers his face and she remembers scolding him and hugging him and being so proud of him and sometimes, wishing he didn't have to be so strong. She remembers that she loves Carl like a little brother she didn't know she wanted.

Carl runs out of the greenhouse calling, _"Dad!"_

Left alone with him now. With the blue eyes and strong hands, whose name she can taste on the tip of her tongue, but can't say yet. There's hundreds of blackberries and they're both starving, without waiting for Carl or anyone else they reach for the same patch of berries. The cold has chilled the berries, but they are still soft and plump and ripe. The perfect tang hits her tongue and she has to close her eyes a moment.

 _"That was the best blackberry in Georgia."_ Beth sighs.

 _"Nah uh, Mine was better,"_ her companion claims and he might have a point, as he immediately found the biggest, fastest specimen and let it bleed all over him as he devoured it. Juice stains his thumb and forefinger, dribbling in a straight line down to his wrist.

She catches his hand and closes her mouth around the bead juice on the edge of his thumb, sucking gently she gradually moves her lips up the purple trail. He's tense, as she draws back, feeling a flood of mortification at the ruby color in his cheeks. She releases his wrist with a slight jerk of her little, shaking hand. An apology bubbles in the back of her throat, but the need to stutter her embarrassment ebbs as soon as she catches the tiniest grin, pulling at the side of his mouth.

He lifts his hand back to his mouth, draws his middle and forefingers across his tongue to lap up the last of the juice.

 _"Yeah. Yours was better."_ She says, cleaning her lips and trying not to look at his. Where did that urge come from, not just to taste the juice, but to taste him. _Why did I do that? Why didn't I stop myself? Why did he let me get away with it?_

Blue eyes won't meet hers, as he takes a step away, turning his back to search through the bushes, revealing a pair of stitched angel's wings. _"Damn straight."_

* * *

Before they get into the city, Daryl should tell him. It's not the kind of thing you should just spring on your partner. He probably should have brought it up days ago, but the explanation got caught in his throat, even during the quiet, dark hours when there was nothing to do but stare into a campfire and say things that needed saying. Even if Aaron's eyes were quiet and free of judgment. Even if enough time had passed that he could say things now. Maybe not her name, but other things. He found himself grinding his teeth, furious and crushed all over again.

Still, as Atlanta looms ahead and he slows his bike, hailing Aaron to a stop, he contemplates leaving it until later. They could just come up with a plan to approach the hospital without having to talk about what has to come after.

Aaron doesn't check the surroundings very thoroughly as he gets out of the car. His demeanor only betrays a little caution, habitual vigilance, rather than legitimate worry. He trusts Daryl to keep them both safe, knows he wouldn't stop if he wasn't sure the way was clear.

"Do you still want me on point?" Aaron's eyes earnestly search him, and Daryl can read what's lurking in his thoughts, a question about exactly how bad this was. Bad enough that Daryl didn't want to return, he's worked that much out, but not so bad that he outright refuses, has a good reason why they aren't the right people. Since Daryl knows them already, shouldn't he be the first figure they see? It's a fair question, but the answer is absolutely hell no.

"Haven't been real forthcoming 'bout this," Daryl admits, almost managing to make it into a proper apology with a shameful half-shrug. "I might've… shot their leader in the head. Just about three weeks before you met us."

Aaron's eyes go wide, his eyebrows disappearing into his hairline. "Will they…?" the gears are turning and he seems confused. Daryl doesn't blame him. He's got to be wondering how likely it is that they'll be willing to join up with them, with this new information.

"We also already asked them to join us, and they weren't interested. But. We weren't offering them _Alexandria_." Daryl swallows, he's almost through the easy part. "I wouldn't've come this far if I didn't think they'd want it. Noah said once… they believed someone would come save them. Or they hoped for it. I think that hope was mostly dead by the time we left, but…" he trails off into a mumbled uncertainty.

"I understand," says Aaron steadily, and Daryl doesn't doubt it. He shifts his weight, choking up on the large rifle slung over his shoulder. He taps the handlebars of Daryl's bike as he thinks, "Maybe, I approach them first, and I can warn them that they're about to see a familiar face. I still think it could help introductions, catch them off-guard. They probably weren't expecting to see you again."

"If you think it'll help," Daryl spares the city a look of hatred.

"What do you think?"

Daryl frowns and shakes his head, "I think the less I say, the better, but they'll want some kind of explanation."

Nodding, Aaron waits, watching Daryl with those clear eyes. "Is that all?" he knows it's not.

Daryl takes a few good long breaths, heart high and shoulders heavy. "…I always knew I'd have to come back here. I didn't think I could handle it. I didn't want to lose it. Not when they need me, so I decided to wait, until I was…" _stronger, ready, not so likely to throw myself on a funeral pyre._ "Until I wasn't needed, or something." He unzips his jacket, suddenly warm, though there's a chilly breeze on the air. "We lost someone, when we were here. She grew up about forty miles out of the city before the turn, and we were gonna go back there to put her to rest. Ran into a herd on the road. Had to leave. I locked her in the trunk of a car, so they wouldn't get to her, but…" he tries to rush through the words, living it had been hell, but even just saying it slices great poisoned lesions through his chest.

The pain in Aaron's eyes is like something from the world before it ended. It's so easy now, to be hard, to just accept that it's ugly and bloody. Good girls die. Dogs are food. Friends get lost. Bodies are left behind, desecrated. "But, she deserves better," Aaron says. Then he's quiet, sympathy unquestioned. Of course she does.

"She's close. We didn't get very far out of the city. I figure, if these guys wanna join up with Alexandria it might take them a bit to put things in order and be ready to leave. While they're packing up… I can go take care of her. I know… It matters." Finally, a little relief comes. It's the emotional equivalent of removing a bullet. It hurts and makes him feel faint and sick and like he might pass out from the agony, but once it's gone, he breathes out. Still empty and aching, Daryl is relieved to see that Aaron not only understands, but isn't going to press for details.

Aaron's hand closes firmly on Daryl's shoulder, but he doesn't say anything, he just holds onto him for a moment, anticipating the city with a grim look.

The streets are more or less clear from walkers, at least in comparison to the last time he's been here. The herds must have gravitated together and into another part of the city, because there are just stragglers now, ones with broken limbs or other impediments to prevent them from keeping up.

Nervous, Daryl realizes he's never gotten this far before. He's been so preoccupied thinking about the precious task that had been neglected in their haste that he nearly forgot to anticipate the actual recruitment.

It's his job now. He and Aaron have seen people, and nearly approached them, but something always stopped them. Except for Morgan. But Daryl doesn't count that. He might be the first person that Daryl brought into Alexandria, but he hadn't exactly found him. It was more like Morgan found them.

These guys though… they were coming in cold. Only sparse, horrific history connected them. He wants to bury it deep, and he's sure they did too.

He and Aaron don't have to speak much as they make their approach. They try to wait, to see a guard or some kind of indications of life, but the hospital stands still and seemingly empty. Some shuffling in a window catches his eye. Through the scope of Aaron's gun, he confirms it's a walker in one of the patient rooms.

"It might not mean the worst," says Aaron, optimism shining out of his ass, though the weight and the grief in his eyes and the lines of his face remind Daryl not to think the man too naïve. Aaron knows full well that it might mean exactly what it looks like. "You said they took you up to a higher floor? That some parts of the hospital were blocked off?"

"Fifth floor," Daryl's throat tightens.

"Well, that's the third. Maybe that's one of the places they had to cut off."

This place looks dead. Not even seven months have passed, but it feels like decades, looking at this building. Cars with crosses are parked around the side, but not as many as Daryl remembers. Maybe they aren't all dead, but they aren't here.

They can't leave without checking it out. Even if this trip does turn out to be a bust, they can always search for medical supplies and equipment. Maybe even some instructional materials, so that Rosita could round out her medical education with text.

Daryl doesn't know whether to feel relieved or not that the hospital proves to be deserted. He's hollow as he walks these hallways, lazily putting down the occasional walker.

It seems like every place they visit has a story that could be pieced together by the evidence and scars left behind, but Grady Memorial Hospital is a mystery.

There are no clear signs of having been overrun by walkers, or visited by marauding types. It's just empty, as far as they can tell.

Maybe something bloody has gone down, and dogs and walkers came in to clean up the mess. Doors are left open and the decent supplies are mostly gone.

They still find some things. Gauze, an ultrasound and some textbooks. Aaron pockets syringes and scrubs, plastic gloves and two stethoscopes, while Daryl puts together a kit of surgical tools that hadn't made it out. A lot of it is stuff they already have in Alexandria, but maybe they'll need more one day. More than anything, he can tell that Aaron doesn't want to just return empty-handed.

 _Maggie needs a Doctor._ Daryl remembers his fight with Glenn with an extra shot of guilt. He may not have wanted to bring Grady's Doctor into the fold, but he understands why Glenn does. It's important. It also what she would've wanted. And not just because it's her sister, but because she believed there were still good people. He pauses and glances at the directory on the wall. He's on the fifth floor, but he knew that. He remembers those stairs all too well. She was so heavy.

While Aaron is trying to crack open a locked drawer he finds himself drifting. He knew he would, but he's still not quite prepared to stand where it happened. So was so heavy.

They cleaned up all the blood. There's nothing left, but the place still feels like death hangs over it, except that means something different these days.

Daryl feels death all the time. Is ever aware of it's power. This place feels more somehow more dangerous than others, more aware. Strangely holy, this evil place. _She was so heavy._

"Daryl?"

He isn't sure how long Aaron stood watching him, he didn't count the minutes.

Aaron wears an expression that says it's time to go. They've striped this tomb of everything they could carry that might be of value to them. "Come on. Let's go… we've still got something to do in this city."

 _You're never going to be ready for it._ But Daryl nods, because it doesn't matter whether he's ready or not. She's waiting for him in that trunk and he can't leave her there.

He's lost so many people, until death became something exhausting rather than something he truly fears. This was different. His heart rages as he leaves that place. Losing her was a fear he'd already realized long before she was really gone. It didn't make him feel weary. It didn't stop him in his tracks so he could mourn. It ended him.

With others, he could tell himself they were at peace and he could believe it. That's what he'd always done. It hurt like a son of a bitch to lose people. It made him angry. It made him curse the world. But he was always the same, in the end. He could always tell himself that they were at peace.

He wants to tell himself that about Beth Greene.

But it would be a lie. He feels it more than ever, being back in the place where it happened.

She isn't at peace, and neither is he.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you all so much for your love and awesome feedback last chapter! Hope you like the update!
> 
> A Dustland Fairytale - The Killers


	3. Like A Bullet

_"Forty miles isn't bad at all. With the gas we syphoned, we could take her back to her home. Like you originally planned."_ Daryl remembers the last thing that Aaron said to him before they pealed off into their separate vehicles to leave the city. His manner is soft and respectful, just as Daryl knew it would be. He acts like it's not a huge inconvenience, though Daryl knows it is.

Still, Daryl is willing to ask for it. He slows his speed as they approach a gnarly patch of road and a few abandoned cars, tumbled about. He maneuvers his way around, glancing back briefly to make sure that Aaron is still safe in his wake. It's a good suggestion, especially if they're taking her to the farm anyway. Maybe he owes Glenn and Maggie. Maybe some heirlooms from the family farm will make up for being such a dick. With any luck, he might even be able to find some baby clothes.

Up ahead, the red fire truck is the first recognizable fixture. He wasn't watching when it happened, so he still hasn't gotten the full story of precisely _how_ they managed to flip it. There were some jokes that no one found particularly funny, especially not Abraham. Apparently, it was the second car he'd flipped in as many days.

As he draws closer, the blurred-out grey around the patch of red takes shape and he realizes something is wrong. The area where the black Honda should be waiting is upset. He finds the car on the landscape, but the state of it isn't what he remembers at all.

Sometime in the seven months since he'd last been here, something had gone down; by the looks of it, an earthquake, although, there are other ways to crack the ground in half like this. A great crevasse appears straight down the center of the street for about half a block. It starts out as a thin black line, but soon widens to fist width and then, soon enough, it's big enough that you could fall into it and get stuck. Perhaps heavy rains loosened up the earth enough to create a sinkhole, maybe it was that herd, he can't even say how many bodies there were, but they just kept coming. The weight of them must've been enormous.

The side of the road that the Honda had been parked on is slanted badly to one side. The car itself has rolled to crash into the edge of the road, so the trunk-end of the car is elevated up about five feet higher in the air than the hood. Still, it's intact. Solid. Nothing could've gotten in there. He knows he ought to call out to Aaron, but his tongue is tied up inside his mouth. The bloody car is discarded about twenty feet from where it got really desperate, when they knew they had no choice but to run back into the city, find new vehicles, leave the mass at their backs. He'd seen a horde that big one other time, both times, he'd been amazed they all made it out alive.

It isn't the right tomb for her at all. The image of that car haunted him for seven months.

He's been so concerned by the state of the road, and what it might imply that he parks his bike, climbs off and runs to the edge of the crevasse without realizing that Aaron isn't with him.

He takes a moment to breathe deep and hears his companion calling out to him.

"Daryl!" Aaron has parked his car about twenty feet back from the bike, and jogs ahead, hands tight on his gun, ready in case there's a threat.

His throat feels a little tight, otherwise he would've responded somehow, just to let his partner know that he was vigilant.

"Is that it?" Aaron arrives next to him, out of breath, but still steady and focused on their immediate surroundings. A few lonely walkers loomed in the distance, but they're as good as alone on this road.

"Uh huh," Daryl adjusts the crossbow on his back and leaps to the other side of the crevasse, skidding the rest of the way down the slope until he stops himself right against the trunk of the Honda.

Right behind him, Aaron also shuffles to a stop against the back bumper, groaning a little as he glanced back the way they came, perhaps trying to work out a more feasible way of getting back to the level side of the road.

"How're we—?" Aaron starts to ask, but stops short as Daryl removes a key from his pocket.

The little thing weighs heavy in his hand, just like it was a bolder in his pocket for all these months. He thought about giving it to Maggie once or twice. Not because he didn't think they'd come back for her body, but just because he wasn't sure he would. Between the two of them, Maggie is more likely to live into the dawning of a new age. She's more likely to be around long enough to see the world be something like it used to. He's seen it in her, that practical, unquestioned instinct to live and to weigh the lives of those around her. Daryl isn't so sure about himself, hasn't been, for at least seven months. He can survive. Living isn't quite the same thing though. There have been some dark moments, when he wondered if it might make more sense to give the key to Maggie.

She doesn't even know he has it.

As he puts the key into the lock he realizes it was always going to be him. He was always supposed to come back here for her. It's his burden to shoulder.

The trunk pops and he lifts the lid, prepared for any gruesome possibility, except for the one that faces him.

Beth Greene is gone.

* * *

Although Beth is more exhausted than she can ever remember being in her life, she has to wrestle sleep into submission. It's a cold night, and her pounding head seems to echo through her dreams. She awakens before dawn, unsatisfied and still trapped in hell.

Quietly, she acknowledges to herself that she had been hoping for more memories, or maybe a dream that could help her put the pieces into place. How she ended up here, what happened to the others she was with, why she was all the way out in Atlanta, all of these questions plague her, but as much as she wants the answers, she's afraid. It will mean something, one way or another.

_How long has it been?_

Climbing out of the closet, she finds the first cracked mirror in the bathroom and spits on it to try and clean up the dust and dirt obscuring the image. Rubbing the heel of her hand against the surface, she slowly peels away the filthy layers of grime, stretching bits of it across the image glaring at her from the mirror.

Her breath catches in her throat when she sees herself. _Who is this stranger?_ Her face is caked with a thick layer of dust and dirt, and underneath that, she's mangled. She's older. She's _definitely_ older. Maybe only a few years, but still, not the same girl she knows so well in her mind. Her face is thinner, harder, she's scarred and bruised, some marks are fresh. Slashes where the skin burst apart are on her forehead and on her cheek. The stitches are atrocious, no care at all, but she feels certain she didn't do it herself, she probably could have made them more delicate. Still, the cuts are healing.

High up near the top of her hairline on the left side of her forehead is a small round wound. Her blonde hair is matted and filthy, and a lock of it is stuck so that it almost covers the red circle, about the size of her pinky-print. Carefully, she lifts up the hair to better inspect it.

The skin is healing and swollen and doesn't like to be touched, but she can't tell what it is. A puncture wound? It almost looks like a bullet-hole, but she can't have been shot in the head. _Unless, this is hell._

Feeling ill, she lets her hand drift around to the sticky patch on the back of her head, still not wanting to really touch it directly. When she focuses on the area, she's all the more aware of the throbbing, of her headache and stiff neck.

The sun is barely rising, so the inky image in the mirror is all the more mysterious, bathed in bluish light. The dark circles around her eyes and the various scars look like they belong to some wild thing, some creature of this new world. Beth lets the shard of mirror drop to the floor with a clatter.

_Bang bangbang bang bang_ a loud knocking on the doorframe makes her jump to her feet.

_"I heard one!"_ a voice hisses in undertone. "Hey, c'mon out pretty little monster, lemme bash your brains in!" a bright, young, female voice proceeds footsteps.

_Shit shit!_ Beth realizes that she left the crowbar in the closest. She searches the bathroom for another weapon, but her eye catches the window instead. She'll lose her supplies, but she can escape. Her instincts want her to run, her muscles are itching to climb out that busted window, even if she's curious to know who this voice belongs to.

The broken glass in the frame slices through her filthy palms and fingers, stuck inside of the cast on her arm, but she ignores it. Dropping with the light thud on the dirt. She only makes it about three feet before someone grabs her from behind.

"Hey! _Hey_ ," He's got a thick pair of strong arms that hold her in a tight bear-hug. She can only make out muscles, dark skin and a wedding band. She stomps down at his feet but he whirls her around effortlessly, keeping a firm grip on her arm, so that she can see his face, he looks like he's middle-aged or so, with a few months growth of a beard, black and course. "Calm down, girl, we ain't intendin' harm." He's got a deep, guttural voice that she wants to believe because of a velvet note of sincerity, but her instinct is to twist away if she can.

She can't. He's got at least a hundred pounds on her and although her wrist is slick with blood from the broken glass, he isn't about to let her slip away.

"We're friends, okay—there's only two of us," his other arm comes up to hold onto her shoulder and he's giving her ground, letting her lead them backwards a few feet as she struggles, but he won't release her. "I'll let you go, but I gotta ask first—you know, I _gotta_ ask some stuff, don't I?" That guttural growl has a warning that gives her pause.

"Three questions?" she breathes out, and halts suddenly "You have to ask me three questions?" her heart quickens a little, looking in awe at this man. He doesn't recognize her, but the three questions just slammed into her head.

"Somethin' like that," he's wary now, as he looks at her, brow furrowed over dark eyes. A pair of sunglasses hangs from the front of his dark parka. He's regarding her carefully.

"Sorry—I—just give me a minute," she takes a deep breath, trying to connect to the memory, she shuts her eyes. "How many walkers have you killed?" that's the first question, and she doesn't know the answer for herself, but this stranger has one.

"I have no idea. Hundreds."

"How many people have you killed?" she feels sick. _I would never kill anybody_. Is that true?

"Nine that I know of. Two probably died of their wounds later, but I didn't personally escort them into the afterlife," he answers the second one with a little more grit, Beth's earned herself a critical eye from him, as if he's annoyed that he's the one answering the questions.

" _Why_?" The last question, and she's even more chilled, because even though she doesn't have a number for the second question, Beth has an answer for this one. _Because I had to. They didn't give me a choice._ Who didn't give her a choice?

"Because they woulda killed me. Woulda killed Wanda, or… others, who ain't 'round anymore." He steps to the side to keep Beth in his periphery, but glances back at the house.

It's almost like looking into a mirror at the end of a long hallway. Standing on the steps of the house is a young woman, probably Beth's same size, with a head of blonde hair, the same shade, length and texture as her own. Slowly, this girl who the man called Wanda approaches, blue eyes wary, hand on the hilt of a knife, already drawn on her side.

"I'm Hiatt," says the man. "This is my friend Wanda. We've been traveling together for a long time."

"I'm Beth Greene. I don't know how long I've been traveling, but I'm alone."

As soon as she says she's alone, Hiatt relaxes visibly. His broad shoulders sink a few inches and he glances up at the house. "This your place?"

Beth shakes her head, "Just for the night."

His eyes slide easily down to her hands. She's clutching her bleeding palm against her opposite arm, trying to stifle the flow.

"I can take a look at that, if you want."

"Your a Doctor?"

"Army Medic."

That brings a warm feeling of recognition and for a moment his face looks different to her, like a younger man with bigger, sadder eyes. "Bob," why can she remember his name, but not the other man?

"No… I'm Hiatt," but he doesn't seem annoyed with her, more concerned, as he glances back and forth between each of her eyes.

"Sorry about the bashin' your brains in thing, I heard noise and I thought it was a dead one… Hey, y'okay?" Wanda is finally close enough to get a good look at her, and seems concerned as well.

Remembering her ragged, wild appearance in the mirror, Beth isn't surprised. These two aren't exactly clean, but compared to her they look well taken care of. It might help that there are two of them. They can take care of each other. For some reason, this thought makes her chest ache. "I dunno," Beth finally answers Wanda's question, far too late. "I'm hurt, and I don't remember things."

"What kind of things?" Hiatt glances towards the woods and only now does Beth realize that his hand has been on the hilt of his dagger this whole time as well. He hasn't drawn it yet, but he's prepared to, at a moment's notice and it doesn't seem to be Beth that he's worried about.

"I don't remember how I got here, or what happened to the people I was with. I woke up, inside of a car outside of Atlanta. I've been trying to make my way back home."

Wanda's face goes pale underneath the layer of dust, her lips get thin and she has to look away.

"I'm sorry to hear that. I hope it's not far," Hiatt's still concentrating on the woods, he starts to shuffle backwards a step, motioning for the girls to follow him inside the house.

"Senoia."

Something about that answer amuses Hiatt, he laughs shortly, "Well, that's not too bad. Could be worse."

Wanda smirks, "We met _right_ after it all happened. We've been travelin' together ever since. Started out in California, figured out we both had family in Silver Spring."

"How long?"

Once again, she's the one asking the questions, but the more Hiatt looks at her, the more she can read him and figure out that he's reading her. She doesn't have anything to offer them. She isn't a threat. She's just lost, alone and hurt. "Easy to lose track of time, but maybe… two years?"

"It ain't been that long," Wanda scoffs, but she looks unsure, and as she swallows her face takes on a pale hue. "Maybe it's been longer," she changes her mind in a murmur.

"One of those questions I've got to ask you… you already answered," says Hiatt, nodding towards the house.

"You're alone," Wanda finally meets her eyes, only for a split second. "Of course you are… I don't think she's lyin' Hiatt. Look at her. She ain't got no one watchin' out for her."

"Why would I lie?" Beth speaks so quietly she's not sure either of them can hear. Meeting new people was never terrifying for Beth before now. Her heart is racing right now. She doesn't like being inside of this house with them, she feels strange sitting on the kitchen table with Hiatt inspecting her cut hand, while Wanda clears the home. Both of them look out the windows every few minutes.

Inside his pack, Hiatt has some supplies from a first-aid kit. He cleans the deep gash on the heel of her hand. Beth stares, watching his gnarled hands clear away the blood in a few rough strokes and a rag soaked in whiskey. A raised line of skin beneath the dirt catches her eye. She'd been so filthy earlier she hadn't looked closely enough to see, but now she knows.

There are scars on her wrist.

_I put those there._ Her blood seems to chill inside of her as the memory comes flooding back to her. Breaking the bathroom mirror. It didn't hurt that bad to make the cuts with the broken glass, but her hands shook. She sobbed, she couldn't do it. She didn't want to do it, not really.

Her gut twists and Beth feels like she's going to throw up, in spite of the fact that she's absolutely certain that her stomach is empty by now. _I tried to kill myself. Why would I do that? How could I do that to them?_

Even while her hands tremble, she remembers her father's steady touch, and his heavy eyes. He stitches her wrist with such delicacy. It comes back to her like a pair of waves. Maggie found her and staunched the blood. Her father fixed her.

He heart bursts open and she wants to protest. _No, no. It isn't true. I didn't do that._ But she's got scars on her wrists and new, unwanted memories in her head that say otherwise. _Why did I do it?_

If Hiatt notices the scars, he doesn't say anything.

"I um… there's also, something else," she swallows and blinks back the tears, pushing down deep against the memory of her suicide attempt. She pauses as Wanda reenters the kitchen.

Wanda sets the bag that Beth put together on the floor. "I'm guessing this is yours?"

"Yeah… and the crowbar in the closet."

"Dammit, I wanted that," sighs Wanda, but she smiles, the tiniest blush rising to her cheeks. They don't really look alike, now that she sees her close up, on paper though, you could mistake them for the same creature.

"Something else?" Hiatt silences Wanda with a glance, turning his attention back to his patient.

"My head. I can't remember what happened, but it hurts, and I can tell it was bleeding around the back. Could you take a look at it, just tell me how bad it is?" Beth gestures around to the back left side of her head.

Frowning slightly, Hiatt stands up to his full height and walks around the side of the kitchen table, "I noticed some red in your hair right after you dropped from the window…" he stops speaking. She feels the hair part right around the concentration of pounding and sticky red.

Without looking at her directly, Beth notices that Wanda freezes where she stands, as she watches her companion, then slowly she starts to glide around the back to look at the wound as well.

"Holy _Shit_ ," whispers Wanda and Beth tenses up.

Hiatt reappears in front of her, mouth a grim line, though he seems to think that Wanda's reaction is uncalled for. Beth barely catches a nearly imperceptible shake of his head, directed at Wanda. He gently brushes aside the hair in front of the small wound on her forehead, frown deepening.

He disappears around the back of her again and she can feel him gently parting her hair, his fingers working their way through the tangle, following a line from the puncture wound near the top of her hairline to the sticky spot in back. For what feels like several suspenseful minutes, he doesn't say anything. Finally, he sits down heavily on the table in front of her, looking at her sideways with narrowed eyes. "You don't remember anything?" if possible, his guttural voice drops even lower, to a rumble.

She still can't see Wanda. The young woman has been very silent since her minor outburst.

Beth doesn't shake her head, her neck is too stiff to allow that. "No."

"I haven't seen a wound like that since the battlefield." Hiatt's hundred yard gaze flickers out the window, beneath his coarse black beard, his jaw has tensed.

"Still seems like a battlefield to me, Hiatt," murmurs Wanda.

"Well…" Hiatt starts slowly, "But there appears to be a wound track running over the top of your head. There's bruising through your hairline that suggests a small object entered just below the hairline and then exited around the back."

"A small object?" Beth repeats, mimicking his calm, toneless voice. "Like what?"

"Like, a bullet, probably."

For just about an age no one in the kitchen moves or speaks. Hiatt and Wanda seem to be waiting for something, but Beth feels the stillness deep. It's not just her muscles and her lungs and her heart that have stopped, it's every cell of her, ready to decay. It's the stillness of death. Suddenly, the pounding in her head and the faint ringing in her ears rushes over her, the rhythmic drumbeat gets louder as the bell's pitch rises and then she feels it and she hears it.

Her head bursts. Like thunder striking her where she stands. There's nothing but light and her eyes are full of the roar, that blast of death.

"I got shot in the head," her shaking hand makes it up to the side of her skull, before she realizes that she's regained the power to move.

"My guess…" Hiatt nods, speaking quietly, "I can't be sure, without an x-ray, but the fact that you're walking around and seem more or less alright tells us a lot," he's very careful as he speaks, clearly not wanting to either alarm her, or give her too much hope. "It must have been close."

"It was," and then she remembers, not all of it, but just the split second before that crash of lightning that erupted inside of her skull, shutting her down. "She was standing right in front of me. I didn't even see her draw the gun." She can remember the woman's face, so close to her own and she can remember rage. Fury, like she didn't know how to feel. She doesn't even remember this woman's name, but Beth knows that she made her feel red all through her bones.

"You remember?" Wanda finally speaks and her voice is strange and thick, like maybe she was fighting the urge to vomit.

"Not very well, but yeah. There's a dark-haired woman. She's all slick… Uniformed. Standing so close, we're practically touching noses. She's got a gun at her hip."

"Did she fire from down that low?" Hiatt perks up, "From the hip?"

"I dunno. I just know I didn't see her draw the gun. I'm looking at her face and then…" she trails off, no idea how to convey what happened next without breaking something.

"If the angle was _that_ steep, that's good. Not a lot of brain damage."

"How?" Beth wants to believe it, but she feels in her heart that isn't the case. She can't remember things. That's enough of a sign that she's not alright in the head.

"The bullet either cut through your scalp and skull, or, if it did perforate the skull, it would have only scratched the top of your brain before it exited."

Inside her mind, Beth is listening to a rolling storm moving further and further away, taking the lightning with it. Gingerly, she touches the small hole in the top of her forehead again. _This is a bullet hole?_

"By the size of the entrance and exit wounds, I'd say it was low caliber, steep angle. You're lucky."

_Then why do you look like you're expecting me to drop dead any second?_ "But, you don't think it just cut through my scalp, do you? You think it did get my brain?"

"A little bit, yes."

When it comes to the brain, even a little bit is bad.

"I think it perforated the skull, I think that the hydrostatic shock did more damage than the actual bullet-to-brain contact." He glances at Wanda, over her shoulder, before he concedes, "but, I think that if that gunshot was all you had to worry about, you'd be fine. You're awake. The exit wound is small. A tiny patch of bone can grow back. Same with a small patch of scalp. You'll never grow hair there again, but your body has decided to live. You're healing quickly. That bullet isn't what's going to kill you."

_But something will._ She doesn't want to ask, she doesn't want to hear it, because this part is actually familiar to her. "Infection."

Hiatt doesn't need to confirm it, but he does her the courtesy of looking her right in the eye. "Bacterial meningitis, in all likelihood. Living in these conditions…" Hiatt shakes his head gravely. "I don't have anything to give you for that."

"My daddy's a doctor. He has… some things," _Had_ some things, she pushes away the fear, she's going home today. She's going home today and her dad is there, her dad who always keeps medicine on hand, just in case. He'll have penicillin. He'll have antibiotics that can combat a bacterial infection. He stitched her wrist. He's waiting at the farm for her. _He has to be._

The expression on Hiatt's face gives away a little too much and Beth wants to break down. He thinks what Beth is afraid to consider, that maybe her father is long gone and she just doesn't remember, because her mind is a jumbled mess. "Senoia?"

"Senoia," she says firmly. "I can make it there today."

"You shouldn't be alone," says Wanda suddenly, she walks around to the front of the table to face Beth, "You should—" but Hiatt cuts her off, anticipating what she's going to say.

"We _can't_ have you with us," he says firmly, putting a hand on Wanda's shoulder and patting her gently. "Meningitis is contagious, and it can set in fast. Can't risk it. Besides that, we're headed in the opposite direction." But he pulls something from his pack, a small notebook and pen. He scribbles on the paper, "Just in case you can't get to your dad, these are the antibiotics I would give you. If I had 'em. If it was still that kind of world." He rips the paper free and passes it over to her.

* * *

Daryl's knees mold to the crumbling asphalt. He grips the trunk with both arms, feeling the cold shape of the car and the hard earth pressing in on him, leaving their angry red marks and aches. Aaron is right beside him for a few minutes, holding onto him while he takes his moment to gnaw on his own tongue, trying not to cry.

It doesn't work.

Eventually, Aaron is forced to get up and kill approaching walkers. Only four and they're spread out. Daryl contemplates peeling himself up from the road and helping. He takes a few needed breaths, and gets to his feet, once again facing the empty trunk, confusion and fury twisted together inside his chest. Aaron doesn't say anything, doesn't suggest or impatiently gesture to him, he just stands watch, while Daryl climbs inside the trunk.

Flat on his back, looking up at the unforgiving sky above the tilted lid, Daryl listens to his own breathing even out, get steady again. It's not exactly a feeling of peace, more a memory. If he listens good and intent to his own mind, he can almost hear her singing again.

All the practical questions he has drift away from him, until he's just left with one angry word.

_Why?_

If he had just checked the window before he opened that damn door… if he hadn't let his head getting turned transform him into a careless son of a bitch, he could be back there right now with her. They never would've left that place. He strangled the thought time and time again when it came to him, because it was no use thinking about what he could have done differently and she would be the first to tell him that.

She should've lived. Alexandria was exactly the sort of place where she ought to be, safe and sound and with her family. With him.

He'd dared to think it once, and it got her taken from him. There's no point thinking about it now. No point imagining the life they might have lived together.

Clouds move away from the sun, and the car pulls the light inside. A flash to the side of him catches his eye and he turns to look at the back of the trunk. The seat is folded down, so he can see straight through to the windshield and the sunny sky beyond.

_Why take her?_ Another question that leaves him weary. Looking back, he had nightmares about this. He thought about coming back to find her gone, but he never imagined it quite like this. Sometimes the car itself was gone. Sometimes the whole road was buried under a landslide, or sunk into the earth. He had never expected to find an empty tomb.

_Who would take her?_

Heavily, Daryl sits up and climbs out of the trunk. He drops the key on the road and slams the lid shut.

"Could she… have turned?" Aaron's gaze searches him as he comes back, brow furrowed in concern, but he looks as though he's already determined that what Daryl wants more than anything is answers. Answers he probably can't have, but that he's got to look for.

Daryl murmurs, "Shot in the head."

Aaron's gaze is fixed on the trunk, the confusion in his eyes as apparent as Daryl feels it. "I'm so sorry, Daryl. You cared about her so much. I'm sure she knew that."

Daryl isn't so sure. He's never been good at endearing himself to people. His merest attempts at being nice always tend to come off funny to other people. Things changed for him after the world ended. Now, he feels more like people can at least see his value. Not as the sort of human who builds up the new world, but as the sort who just keeps living, and never quits fighting the dead, even when he wants to.

Even if they don't like him, they like what they can take from him, and he's willing to provide it.

She was different though. He hadn't figured it out soon enough. It wasn't anything to do with him, she was just the sort of person who loved, saw the good, accepted the bad. She had a way of looking at a man without judgment, that prompted him to spill so many things he knew he shouldn't even think.

But, not everything. She probably didn't realize how he cared about her. Maybe she knew parts of it. A girl like that, with sharp eyes and an ability to read people, probably had enough experience and insight to tell when a man wanted her.

Daryl is sure he'd managed to look foolish in front of her. She would've seen how he stared. That wasn't the point of them though, and she tolerated it, maybe, he'd even hoped for a day or two, that she might feel the same way about him sometimes.

Whether she did or not, she had a lien on him, body and soul. He cared about her in a way that cut deep. He would've done anything for her. He walked through hell and back to see her safely out.

Or, he'd tried.

All his fight had been for nothing, in the end. He couldn't save her.

She is dead and he is alive and nothing can change it.

"Hey," Aaron nods up ahead. Back on the city-side of the road, about a hundred feet back from his car, there's a grey shuffling crowd making their way towards them. His face is grim. "Let's go to the farm anyway."

Daryl draws his thumb across Beth's dagger, sheathed safely away, though he may need it in short order. "You sure?" He can't tell whether he dreads going back there, or if it will somehow help, to see some pictures of her back when the world was kinder and nothing was ever coming for her.

Aaron raises his rifle and cocks his head back towards the car, "We won't go back empty handed."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Admitting to artistic liberties – every single person I have EVER talked to, who suffered a serious head injury says that they can never remember anything surrounding the incident. Ever. It's just gone. But that's annoying for a narrative purpose, so, let's pretend it's not super unusual. Agreed?
> 
> So, I'm a dork, but can I just share how disappointed I was when I figured out that Beth could just take the antibiotics orally? Idk, I just had this scene in my head of Hiatt carving a tiny little x marks the spot in her lower back where she ought to spinal-tap the medication directly into the cerebral spinal fluid, but that's totally not what they do, lol. I was super pumped to write that, I thought it would be such a metal scene, but I went and double-checked my research and it's totally unnecessary and not a thing:( poo.
> 
> Big thank you to everyone who is reading! I'm so happy you guys are enjoying this so far!
> 
> When You Sleep - Mary Lambert


	4. Dead and Hungry

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> We'll get some Daryl next chapter, but just a warning that this is a Beth-POV-only chapter, if you want to wait until you get the other perspective to round things out, that'll be next update.

They don't say goodbye. They aren't those kind of people. Wanda nods at her, mouth tight. Her gaze moves across Beth's face, almost as if to take in her scars as if they frame her soul, as much as any intense pair of blue eyes.

"Thank you, for everything," Beth indicates the gauze wrapped across her head, and through her well-woven plait of blonde hair. After Hiatt cleaned and wrapped the wound for her, Wanda carefully untangled and tied her hair into a braid to keep it out of her way.

"Tilt your head down and touch your chin to your chest," Hiatt looks at her from behind his sunglasses, face blank.

Trying to do as he's asked, Beth bends her neck, but the stiffness and pain cause her to recoil, she lets out a faint gasp.

She looks back up at Hiatt's face. His lips are slightly curled into his teeth in a firm grimace. "That's what I thought. You've gotta open your mouth, because it hurts too bad?"

Beth doesn't nod, sure that will be painful too. He knows he's right anyway, doesn't need her to say it. "It could just be whiplash," she speaks so quietly she can barely hear herself.

Hiatt can hear her, "Maybe," he concedes, "But don't count on it. Assume from here on out that you have bacterial meningitis. Get those antibiotics. Immediately." Those are his parting words to her. She watches the two of them walk in the opposite direction for a few paces, then she disappears into the trees herself, going the right way. The way home. She knows that they will speak to one another about her, and she knows what they will say.

_She won't survive. Maybe we should have just taken everything she had._

_Her symptoms will get worse. She'll get confused and exhausted._

_She won't make it._

"But, I made it," she says out loud, to no one, feeling the prickle of tears in the corner of her eyes. "I'm not like you, or them, but I made it." Who is she talking to? She takes a deep breath and keeps her voice down, eyes digging through the terrain around her for any sign of a threat. Listening, she even finds herself pausing to pay attention to what she smells around her. The dead have a putrid scent, but she's used to it, or they aren't close enough to bother her.

She should conserve her water, but she feels dehydrated and so she drinks all of it, a few careful gulps at a time, until the bottles are empty just a half a mile outside the farm.

They've got wells on their property, and maybe it's been enough time that the contaminated one isn't a problem anymore.

_Contaminated?_ It comes back to her with this word that Maggie used to tell her what happened. Those strangers killed a walker trying to get it out of the well. She feels a shudder and knows that this was back during a time when she wasn't used to killing walkers yet. Wasn't used to killing people.

_They're just sick people._

_No, they're dead._

She knows these voices in her head, loves them both but her daddy is definitely wrong. Why he ever thought they might just be ill in the first place escapes Beth, the only reason she believed it is because her dad said it. Left to her own devices, she sees what they are; they are monsters. Dead people. More than anything, hungry.

In the woods, her eyes search the ground, not intentionally, but as a reflex. Almost like how she knew, without thinking about it, that she needed to drive that crowbar into the walker's skull to stop it. Her muscles acted for her.

There are walker prints, old ones, and she knows what those look like, knows how to tell that it's been too long for her to be bothered.

And there are deer prints. Fresh ones. She can recognize those to.

_I'm tracking._ She realizes in amazement. _I can hunt. I have to hunt, to survive._

But not today. She has a different goal today.

Her feet compel her forward even as she starts to come upon the farm and can feel her heart breaking. It isn't as apparent as looking at Atlanta from the road where she woke up, but all the same the familiar and yet wilder and darker tree-line, the horizon wrapped around her childhood home, in shrouded in a sense of death.

cloudshover overhead, a halo for the lost. It's going to rain. Though she's aching all over, dehydrated and half-starved, she runs again. Not because anything is chasing her, but because that's what you do when it's time to seek shelter.

The farmhouse that she comes upon is shelter, only in the most technical sense, not at all in the way she hoped.

The fence has been knocked into the dirt and trampled over, she barely trips across its remains, half-buried in the ground and already overgrown with long grass. She sees home up ahead, exactly as barren as she feared, each pounding heartbeat accompanies a silent and yet deafening no no no no in her heart. Her feet keep time, and even if she can't see it, she can feel the heat of the fire that burned the barn to the ground. The house isn't burned, but even from this distance she can see that the front door is missing, the windows are all broken, the porch caved in. No one lives here.

She doesn't live here.

Her family doesn't live here.

_I went the wrong way._

But it can't be wrong. The farmhouse is the pinnacle of civilization, of _home_. Her family has to be here. Where would they go? Her father would never leave. Then, with a numbness and a ringing in her ear that almost blocks out the gasping sounds of her own heavy breathing, she sees the bones.

The grass is strewn with bones. Ground, dirty walker bones. There must have been a hundred of them, ripped apart right here. She remembers screaming and blood, remembers watching the bodies fall. _No no no no_. She pushes it down, forces the memory back.

Wandering, she finds herself near the barn, but feels a keen aversion to looking at it, for some reason, a memory burns in the back of her head, but she pushes it down too, buries it under a mountain of " _no_ "s. She looks away.

_I'm not ready._

Turning her back on the barn and farmhouse, she can't bring herself to go in that direction. She knows that she needs food and water and that her family had supplies stashed. With any luck, there will still be something there for her.

But, her family won't be there. She can see that now, can feel the emptiness of this place.

I just want to lay down and cry. Right here in the dirt would be fine, with the other tired bones.

Her aching neck drives her onward. If she lies down now, she'll cry herself to sleep in the dirt, and when she wakes up, maybe the symptoms will have finally hit her hard. Maybe she'll be too unwell to take care of herself. Maybe she'll never wake up.

Her daddy has some things stashed in the house, but even thinking about walking towards it right now makes her feel weak and cold. They aren't there. She thought for sure they would be here. Waiting for her.

There's more medicine in the stables. Even if it was all basically made of the same stuff, daddy always kept the animals medicine and the human medicine separate. As long as no one's found their stash, as long as they didn't take it with them when they left, it will still be there.

Inside the stables a slow, legless walker greets her. She doesn't recognize him, but then again, she doesn't look at him straight on for longer than it takes to raised the crowbar up high and bring it down into his skull. Walker bones seem softer than human bones. Maybe they are decaying, slowly. She flicks her wrist and much of the blood runs off the blade, spattering the side of the empty stalls.

_A beautiful woman with a long sword employing the same elegant flick of the wrist. The same thick, dark drops of blood fling from the blade. The woman frowns in disapproval at the still stained blade. "I take care of my sword. Blood should just slid right off… but walker blood is so thick." She muses, barley concerned with the dead she just cut down._

"Here," Beth hands her a handkerchief from her back pocket, folded next to her gun. They're outside a big concrete structure, there's a tall fence topped with barbed wire. 

A prison?

_The woman runs the handkerchief along the blade to remove the more stubborn streaks of dark walker blood._

Beth looks down at the crowbar, sticky with gore. Her arm has grown used to using it, even if the skin of her palms is blistered. She needs to find another weapon. Something with projectiles, or reach. Who was that woman? Where did she find her sword? Did Beth learn anything from watching her?

Her mission takes her to the back shelves, where the medications are untouched. A goldmine waiting for use in the middle of a waste. She should be overjoyed. She should be so relieved that she's found what she needed to survive, but it feels like a hollow victory.

_Where are they?_

What would be the point in living if she didn't have them. Remembering the scars on her wrists with a shudder, she digs through the medicine, finds what she needs and lies down in the worn, enclosed stall, where her horse Nelly used to sleep.

* * *

Her own voice wakes her in a cool, early morning memory. She's singing to Judith. _"There is a house in New Orleans, you call the Rising Sun. It's been the ruin of many a poor soul, and me, oh God, I'm one," a shadow falls over them and Beth's voice falters just a little, but she finishes the verse, "If I'd listened to what mama said, I'd be at home today. Being so young and foolish, poor girl, I let a gambler lead me astray." Judith seems enthralled, in any case._

Unprepared for the flood of pure adoration, Beth remembers every strand of baby hair, her curious blue glance and dove-like coos and cries. _I always wanted a child._ This is a brand new child. She can see her face, gradually changing in the coming months, but right now, in this lullaby memory, the baby is brand new to this world.

_The shadow shifts its weight a little and Beth looks up. Standing there is the man with the blue eyes whose name she's tried to pluck out of her head more than any other. "Sorry, did I wake you? I came in here 'cause I thought no one could hear–"_

_"Better'n the baby cryin' anyway," he keeps his voice low, and that familiar timbre makes her shiver._

_They're both quite a moment, but it's a comfortable silence, the baby is fussy, but no longer threatening to wail. She drifts towards the man, and he meets her partway, reaching out for the infant. Without hesitation, she slips the baby into his arms, sure that the child will be safer than ever there._

_"Y'ain't hardly slept since she was born," the man's voice gets real soft as he looks down at the baby's face in the dark. "Go on, take care of yourself. I can wait up with her a while."_

_"You don't sleep much yourself these days," Beth murmurs back to him, but she's not about to turn down the offer. Her body aches, her spine doesn't want to hold her upright and her eyes have that stiff sleepless feeling that makes it hard to look in the same direction for very long._

_"Get some sleep, Beth. Don't worry 'bout us. I know some Motorhead she might like." It's too dark to see, but she knows he's just flashed one of his rare smirks._

_"Thank you, Daryl." Beth puts her hands firmly over the back of his, the same hand supporting Judith's head. It's too dark to see, but she can feel those blue eyes, same as she can feel the strength of his hand. She grips onto him briefly before she leaves._

Inside the Nelly's stall, where Beth fell asleep, she stares at the roof, too entranced in the memory to appreciate right away that this is the first time the pounding in her head hasn't immediately demanded her attention. Then, in the distance she hears thunder, and knows it's not the first wave. The gentle tapping of raindrops grows more aggressive. The stables have a good roof. It must not have been long enough that the roof would go bad. She's dry, but cold and stiff. It doesn't smell like horse in here anymore. It smells like walkers and rot. She sits up, slowing piecing together everything that she remembered.

_Do I have a child?_ Judith, she was called, and she was beautiful.

Beth rises to her feet, and has enough presence of mind to take more medication, dry swallowing the pills again. She doesn't know how long she's been asleep, but chances are, long enough. She walks to the doorway, watching the rain grow more torrential as it beats the fields outside. Her hands slip down to the waistband of her jeans and she can't help but feel herself, looking for some clue. If she'd had a baby, she would be able to tell, wouldn't she?

_If I have a baby, then the baby has a father._ She swallows and has to take a hold of the doorframe for support.

_His name is Daryl._ She shakes herself, not willing to take it that far yet, but she knows now, that the man who she remembers in the trunk, the man she wanted a taste of, he's called Daryl.

He's called Daryl and he held that baby with such tenderness. _That baby could be yours. He might be yours too. ___

Realizing that she hasn't taken a breath for several seconds, Beth tries to suck in a lungful and ends up stifling a ragged sob into her palm. Her heart aches for family she doesn't even know. It's too much. Where are her parents? Her brother and sister? Where is the beautiful woman with the sword? What about Carl, and Carl's father?

The baby and the man.

_Why did I wake up alone?_ Now she's afraid that she knows the answer, that maybe she's forgotten because her mind is trying to protect her, in its own treacherous way.

_You woke up alone because they're all gone. You're the only one left._

"That's not true." _I don't know that it's not true._ "They're alive. Somewhere. Just. Not here."

She knows full well she might be lying to herself, can feel the weight of her family's fate heavy on her shoulders. Once she remembers, once she starts mourning, she can't imagine that it will ever stop. Whether or not the baby is hers. Whether or not the ties she feels to these phantoms in her head were as strong as she feels them now.

This family she doesn't know. Even Maggie. Even her real family, thinking back on these memories of them, she isn't sure she knows who they became.

She doesn't know who she's become either. A survivor. A killer. A hunter. A _mother?_

The man could be hers. He could be the father of her child and that rips open her heart. The loss she'll have to shoulder as her memories come back to her, she can already tell that the weight of it might crush her. Finding herself looking at the scars on her wrists again, Beth shudders. The sky cracks with thunder again, the rain keeps coming down like it's trying to beat the earth into submission.

For nearly an hour she stands unmoving, watching until the rain starts to die down, over the restful minutes her heart stops pounding against her ribs and her breathing gets deep again. However long she may have slept already, she could close her eyes and drift off again. The gentle sound of the rain splashes against the damp ground as the sky dries itself out.

_"What are you doin', Greene?" Daryl sounds more than cautious, there's something almost like fear in his voice._

_"Who knows the next time I'll get a shower." She offers her explanation with a voice muffled by sopping wet fabric, she's pulling her shirt over her head, it's the same yellow polo she woke up wearing, but the color isn't so faded._

Caught outside in a rainstorm, just like now, was this the last time? She and Daryl are alone, far from everything. That feeling of perfect isolation should terrify her, because even if she can't remember why, or how long ago, or how long it lasted, she knows that in this moment she and Daryl might as well be the only living people left on this earth.

The wild seems to be inviting them back, they spend more and more time in the trees, wrapped among the green. Just the two of them.

There's a house though. She's in the front yard of an old broken-down farmhouse. They already cleared it, already found next to nothing. But it's shelter and it's raining, so why is she outside?

_The rain feels so good, it's cleaning the sweat and the stink of old smoke and campfire fumes from her clothing and her hair. In the front yard, Beth strips off her shirt and hangs it up on the fence, then she removed her belt and boots, tossing them back through the open doorway of the house, where Daryl is a statute. He's dripping wet himself, but seems as unwilling to leave her as he is to watch her._

_"I'll be fine," she wonders at the blush in his cheeks._

_The group spent so much time crammed together, living rough on the road, she's seen everyone naked at one time or another, and figured it was the same for him. Maybe not. Maybe he was a little better about knocking, about calling out before he turned corners, about keeping his back facing a person during vulnerable moments. Beth wasn't so diligent with her habits._

_She almost says something about the first time she walked in on him changing. They were raiding an old outlet store and the shirt he'd been wearing was reduced to rags. These are early days, he looks younger, she feels younger. He tried to hide it, but she could tell he was annoyed with her. At the time, she thought it was just because he didn't want people to see the stripes on his back, but now, she's wondering if maybe the evidence of his shitty childhood wasn't the only reason he snapped at her to get out._

_"You can leave me alone for five minutes if you want to get undressed inside." She feels her own face getting hot. Maybe this wasn't such a good idea, but the rain feels perfect, and she's got to take her clothes off anyway. They're soaked through._

_"I figured we found shelter so we didn't have to be wet and cold." Grumbles Daryl, but he's already stripping off his vest and starts kicking off his boots in the entryway of their shelter, even as he's looking at her warily, wondering what she's gotten him into._

_"It's a summer shower," the water isn't exactly warm, but she's not shivering, at least not from cold._

_Following her lead, he starts to unbutton his sleeveless shirt. "Back to back," he orders, voice a little higher than normal, "It's safer." He adds in a grumble._

_"Oh, yeah, that makes sense," Beth replies brightly, trying not to let her lips get away from her a stretch into a smile that will embarrass both of them._

_"Ain't seen a single person in—all holy hell knows how many miles," he grumbles, "Somebody would manage to stumble upon us, just as we're gettin' good and naked."_

_Once her back faces—presumably, his back—she quickly peels off her jeans and her underwear at the same time, they're stuck together from the rain. She unlatches her bra, hanging everything up on the fence. It's starting to ease up now, but it's still raining hard enough that she can tilt her head back and has to close her eyes as the drops hit her full in the face, sliding back to drench her hairline. It's not concentrated enough to be like a real shower, but it still feels nice._

_Little faltering steps sway her in place, as she massages her scalp and lets the water run down her body. The squishy ground feels cool against her tired, aching feet. The mud and water from the grass seep between her toes, tickling her._

_Daryl must be wringing out his hair too because flecks of water are splaying at her sideways onto her shoulders and back. She smiles to herself, and, unable to resist the urge, leans forward and bends her neck to gather all her hair straight down in front of her face. She waits a few minutes until it's good and soggy in her hands, then she stands up and flips it back smoothly._

_"The fuck–" she hears Daryl mutter, "You splash me on purpose?!"_

_In reply, she giggles, "Like it makes a difference."_

_"Shoulda checked the bathroom for shampoo."_

_"I did, nothing there," Beth admits. It doesn't look like the old house was properly lived in before the world ended. It was probably someone's weekend place that they inherited and didn't know what to do with. There was no sign of food or other daily supplies, but there were some old unwanted and broken furniture and some clothing and old blankets stuffed in the closet, everything was old and moth-eaten._

_"Ya done?" Daryl grumbles a few minutes later, and she can imagine him impatiently waiting, fists clenched, unwilling to turn his head even a little bit to glance at her and possibly catch an eyeful._

_"Nah uh," she runs her hands through her wet hair one last time, "But I gotta be." She gathers up her clothes, "I'll run inside first. I'm heading to the nursery."_

_"I'll put my stuff in the master bedroom, grab me a blanket while you're in there?"_

_"Nope, all mine."_

_"Pfft."_

_She starts to bolt to the house, but stops with a jerk as Daryl makes one last parting remark._

_"You keep your eyes front, got it girl?"_

_"I'm being good!" she tries to quiet the giggling bubbling up in the back of her throat, "I swear I haven't looked! …have you?"_

_"Just keep your eyes front."_

_"I'm trusting you, Daryl!" her giggling is at risk of turning into uncontrollable laughter if she doesn't remove herself, "I didn't peek, I promise." She finally scurries into the house and takes the stairs in a few wide leaps, but once she gets to the top she halts in front of the door of the nursery._

_She didn't look. The whole time they showered back-to-back out in the rain she kept to herself. But, she couldn't exactly pretend like he wasn't there. Controlling her mind was even more difficult than controlling her neck, but she hadn't turned her head far enough to even get a slivered glimpse of him out of the corner of her eye. She tried to be respectful. These boundaries between them were changing, she could feel it, she was sure he felt it too. She didn't want to push it too far, too fast, didn't want to push him. Knowing what she wanted from him was important too. Right now, she couldn't be sure what that was. They were both vulnerable, but they were strong and they made each other stronger. She didn't know quite what was between them, but she knew that she was glad to be with him, and that she hoped he felt the same way._

_At the top of the stairs, she hesitates, wondering how many Mississippis he'll count before he comes inside after her. How long can she wait here before he appears at the bottom of the stairs? Not long, is the answer, his shadow stretches across the entryway and feeling guilty again, she immediately backs into the room before she can see him._

_At this point, she doesn't even need to wait to dry off, the hot blush all through her flesh is doing the trick. She shuts the door and leans back against it a moment, listening to him come up the stairs._

_Then she realizes that she went in the wrong room. Letting out a small undignified squeal, she throws her weight against the door just as he reaches it and manages to open it just an inch. "Sorry! I got mixed up and went in the wrong room."_

_"Nursery it is then," says Daryl through the door. He sounds amused, at least, if a touch exasperated._

_"Get me a blanket?"_

_"Nah uh, all mine."_

_"Oh c'mon, I woulda gotten you one!"_

_He doesn't reply, but walks away from the door leaving her and her soaked clothing alone. Rolling her eyes, she walks over to the old iron frame of the bed and hangs up her clothes to dry. The bedding is old and dusty and wasn't that comfortable to begin with, she imagines. Stiff, over-starched blankets, too thin for Winter, too scratchy for any other time of the year._

_In the closet she finds a hideous old housecoat with cough drops still in the pockets._

_She slips it on, and uses someone's old trousers to dry her hair before she meets Daryl in the hallway._

_He's got a garish purple knitted baby-blanket wrapped around his waist and he's using a pink onesie to dry his hair with one hand, while his other arm holds a grey bundle against his chest._

_Bursting out laughing, Beth covers her mouth and manages an apology through her fingers. "So, I guess there aren't any clothes in there? Just blankets?"_

_"Nah," he tosses the onsie back into the bedroom even though his long, dark hair is still dripping. He probably only did it to make her laugh, though it's been a long while since Daryl did anything remotely playful, that she can remember. "I did find one thing, but, it'll look better on you." He throws the grey bundle at her._

_It's a sweater, but not like any of the old oversized sweaters in the closet. It's actually attractive and made of soft knit, clearly something worn not-too-long ago._

_"It was balled up under the bed. Somebody must've forgotten it, last time they stayed here."_

She tries to stay in the memory, vivid as it is, what came next and what happened before slip away, almost violently, from her fractured mind. She's left running her fingers over the fabric of the grey sweater she's wearing over her polo. It's the same one, she's sure of it.

Maybe she thought about it. Maybe she _wanted_ more from him, but at least in that moment, he wasn't hers. When did she have the baby? If it's hers, and if it's his, she's sure that the memories she had of the prison came after this memory of being alone with Daryl. They are too nervous, too awkward around each other, too unfamiliar. If they ever had a baby together, it was after this. Although, perhaps it wasn't too long after.

She might be wearing the same clothing, but the yellow of her shirt seems more faded than she remembers. The sweater is ragged. It might have been a while. The prison, the baby, more could come after this memory. The sense of being truly alone is hauntingly deep, now, as she thinks about the pieces of her life that are missing. She remembers now, that she thought she'd felt alone when it was just her and Daryl, but their world was still full, now, it feels barren. She's sure that it was just the two of them for a while. They lived alone. Maybe that's when it happened. Maybe that was when they became… whatever it is that they are.

Almost unconsciously, she prepares to leave. She gathers the antibiotics and painkillers she needs, just in case she can't come back, even this far. In case she has to run.

Somehow, the end of the rain means it's time to move to the house. Whether she's ready or not, it's time to go inside.

With the whole walk to prepare herself, she arrives on the porch, and finds she still isn't ready.

Each step into her old home might as well break her bones. She weak and ready to faint the second she crosses the threshold and sees the damage. A herd came through, that's clear. She pounds the call of _shave and a hair cut_ on the doorframe loudly with an angry fist, that seems to clench tighter at the same rate as the sickening knot in her throat. That tied-up feeling lowers into her chest with every thumping heartbeat. Her beautiful home, the home that was supposed to be heaven, preserved in hell, is empty and decaying like the rest of the world. The elements have damaged everything. There's been flooding and animals nesting. The dead have come and gone. A few linger. She waits and retreats outside to systematically led away and dispatch three of them. She doesn't look closely, afraid she'll recognize them. Once they're no longer moving, she takes a glance. Not her father. Not her mother. Not her sister or her brother or anyone she can recognize. She finds a grey woman with a broken jaw and nothing left in her eye sockets wandering at the top of the stairs into the basement, but aside from those four stragglers, the dead have left her home.

She barricades the front entrance, finds the least damaged room in the house, which just happens to be her own, and sits on the edge, looking at the wall for as long as it takes her healing mind to start remembering things again.

_"How could you do that?"_ it's her own voice ringing back to her. She asked that question of Lori. She was angry. Her hand tightens around her scarred wrist and with a flood of emotion. Lori is pregnant. The world ended, and Lori got pregnant. She's going to bring a baby into this world.

Beth shakes herself, she remembers her disgust and anger. Her confusion at the choice to risk having a child when things are so bleak.

_Lori is Judith's mother._ She remembers now, can see Lori pregnant and worried, the same fear and aversion that Beth felt is apparent in her own eyes sometimes. Beth feels bad for what she said that day, and grateful that she didn't cut Lori down any more than that. It was hard enough without her adding teenage sass into the mix.

_She's not my baby._ It seems stupid to feel so disappointed, but for a few minutes, she considered that the precious child she'd held in her arms and sang to might actually be her own. She thought she could be a mother.

_Judith had a mother, and it wasn't you._

_Had_ a mother. She shudders.

_"I had to cut her open. She begged me too." Maggie breaks down and can't keep talking, but she doesn't have to. Beth wraps her arms around her sister's shoulders._

Horrified, Beth shoved the memory away, chases it back. She finds herself sliding off the bed and onto the floor in the room, hugging her knees up to her chest.

_Begged._ Because in the end, Lori had more faith in her baby's ability to survive than her own. It didn't matter that Judith would be a helpless infant, she would have her big brother and her daddy to take care of her. She would have a whole pack of warriors around her, and Beth to sing to her when she cried. She would grow up, with people who loved her, with people who could teach her to be strong.

_"I'll tell you all about your mama, one day."_ Beth remembers murmuring to Judith. It ought to be her brother or her daddy, but they're both so stoic, so determined to keep moving forward, like they think turning back is a trap.

She can't keep these memories straight, can't latch onto one and figure it out like a puzzle. They don't come as smoothly as the nice memories, and now, Beth thinks she knows why.

Some of these memories are too painful. She doesn't want them. Her mind is rejecting them, every time she gets close she feels some part of her put up a wall. She doesn't want to remember Lori dying before she ever got to hold her baby. She doesn't want to remember her sister's fear.

_The wider I open myself up, there's more red, more death and fear._

Even the room makes her feel sick. This is the room she was in when she asked Lori how she could do it; have a baby, in this world? She'd felt so hopeless. That moment had been one of her darkest, for some reason. She had sat in this sunlit room and looked at Lori, and she didn't have faith in the future. Not a speck of it.

It didn't help that at the time, the very idea of sex still didn't quite appeal to her. She'd been a late bloomer, in a lot ways. At sixteen, she'd managed to get past her fear of sex, but fear hadn't exactly been replaced with delight.

Later, she understood a little better. The world ends, and all you want is to be close to someone.

Later she had faith again. She had hope.

_Why was this moment so dark? Why did I feel so despondent?_ She's afraid to wonder, in case she didn't put that mental wall up high enough, in case she finds the answer.

_"Kid just lost his mom. His dad ain't doin' so hot."_

_"I'll look out for him."_

She can hear her and Daryl's voices in her head. The simple exchange echoes around her. After Judith was born, and Lori was gone. Daryl was worried about Carl. He'd pulled her aside.

Because she knew what he was going through.

At the age of five, Beth was with her family in Florida, at the beach. She'd bolted towards the water when he mother wasn't looking, and somehow hadn't seen, or hadn't realized that a wave was rolling right into her. She could still recall the sensation of being shoved and ground into the sand by a force of nature, it took her air, her balance, all sense of security.

_I knew what he felt like, because it hadn't been that long since I lost my mom._ Like being pummeled with that wave all over again, she remembers; weeks and weeks dripped by in quiet fear, with her mother locked in the barn.

_They're just sick._

Shawn was in there too.

Except, neither of them were really there. They were both gone. They'd been dead for a long time.

When the wave crashed over her, it had only been a few seconds of panic, and then her mother was hoisting her up out of the surf, assuring her that she was alright, as she coughed up sea-water in between sobs.

This time, it's doesn't end after a few seconds, she's trapped in the disorienting reality of it all. Unable to draw breath, unable to find her balance.

_They're dead._ Her forehead presses into the floorboards, right where she's wounded, but she doesn't care. She digs her nails into her scalp.

Her mother is dead. Her brother is dead. Her _father—_

_"Why are you so eager to give up on him?"_ she almost lost him, was almost an orphan too soon… and then she was.

The flash of the blade in her mind might as well be lightning striking her. It's the same sword she saw wielded by the beautiful woman who lamented the texture of walker blood.

Living blood is different. Arterial blood is bright red, and she remembers because she caught a glimpse of that madman, hacking at her father's neck, after the first strike wasn't clean enough.

_I can't do this. I'm not ready._ It doesn't matter. She can't hold the memories at bay, she's too weak.

No wonder she lost hope in this room. No wonder she found the gumption to lash out at her own wrist with broken glass.

_That wasn't gumption. That was an escape. Gumption kept me here._ But right now, she can't feel the truth of it, can't accept that she was ever happy again. Can't accept that surviving was anything other than a sentence of further pain and suffering for herself and those around her.

_"I wanna go. Tonight. In this bed, with you beside me."_ She'd begged Maggie to go with her. Begged. Like Lori begged for the life of her child, Beth begged for death.

_I've lost so much._

She was afraid to think too long and hard about Maggie. What if she'd watched her die in some horrible way too? What if she really was alone. She succumbs to the punishment of her own memories and curls onto the floor.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm so glad that so many people have found this fic already and that you're enjoying it! As with certain other projects that shall go unnamed, I had planned on keeping this in the ten chapter range, but I think it's going to go a bit beyond that. Thanks to everyone for reading! I LOVE YOU.
> 
> And…
> 
> I'm sorry for the long wait. The balance of this author's note is my list of excuses from most to least legitimate, and then the song of the chapter:
> 
> belgium waffles mmm
> 
> finals
> 
> "write-on" for law review
> 
> new job at scary firm with intimidating types
> 
> original book needs me
> 
> other fic too
> 
> new fic that i promised i would not work on yet oops
> 
> age of ultron was really good you guys
> 
> interstellar on dvd
> 
> met a nice cat
> 
> introduced my family to lee pace (on film i mean, i didn't meet him for real, that would have been at the top if i had)
> 
> When the World Is Ready - JuneCat


	5. The Stranger

_GLENN GO TO TERMINUS_

_MAGGIE_  

Standing there in front of the crudely painted, desperate message, Beth feels like days are passing.

This faded graffiti is the first sign she’s seen, in over half a year of searching. How long has this been here? It’s shaded well enough by the environment that rain and floodwaters didn’t strike it until just recently, and by then, the damage was permanent. Though the letters are doubtless losing their original, dark red intensity, it’s still clear enough to read.

At first, it’s a thrilling moment, because she doesn’t have any memories of Maggie or Glenn after the prison fell. None. She’d been so afraid that they died that same day, with her father, but she couldn’t entertain that morbid thought long enough to let it take root in her heart. All the same, the violent relief she feels, shaking through her blood indicates something deep in her subconscious. Some fear.

She’s afraid now. She’s been afraid all this time.

Maggie and Glenn survived the attack at the prison. They had to. Maggie left this message for Glenn because… why? Did they lose each other? Maybe it was as simple as when they were out on a run together and something forced them to fall back to a secondary meeting place, but then Maggie couldn’t stick around.

Terminus though. That name chills her, and snuffs out her relief and her hope for Maggie and Glenn in a flash, until she’s left with only bitterness and that fear.

It took two months of convalescence before Beth felt up to traveling. She stuck close to the farm at first, only leaving to hunt, or scavenge during those first weeks. When she did start to venture away from the farm, the first thing she did was go back to the prison. Seventy miles of hard road was a risk, but she took it, because she didn’t know what else to do.

_I have to find them._

The prison offered her nothing but memories. She’d left before she’d even gotten close to the grounds. Just seeing it from a distance was painful enough. She hadn’t encountered any issues on the way there, however, so she took an extra risk and searched in the area around the prison. It had been so long, there was no point in trying to track, but she was desperate. All she found was the bus, abandoned and rusted to uselessness.

As she moved further out, she found the signs, promising sanctuary. They looked old and uncared for, but she let herself hope, a little bit. As she got closer, that hope flat-lined.

The signs for Terminus were marked with warnings.

_There is no sanctuary here._  Still, Terminus was close enough to Senoia that she figured she didn’t have anything to lose by taking a look. She only found a ruin, burned out, just like the farm, just like the prison. Empty.

“Glenn go to Terminus,” she repeats Maggie’s message through tight teeth, putting it together after so many months.

They were separated after the prison, just like she and Daryl got separated from everyone else. Maggie saw the sign and hoped Glenn would see it too.

_But not you._

Swallowing hard, Beth tries to give her sister—and herself—the benefit of the doubt. She still doesn’t know precisely what order everything happened. Her memories don’t always make it clear. Was there some way, or some reason that Maggie would have every reason to believe she was dead?

_She doesn’t need a reason. Just knowing she lost sight of me is enough. I’m not like the others._

Glenn got a message, because Glenn could survive. Maggie weighed their lives, their capabilities and she sided with the person she knew had a better chance of making it out on the road, and it wasn’t her sister.

It’s not enough to know that Maggie was dead wrong about her, Beth realizes, turning her gaze up towards the heat of the sun and taking a much needed, deep lungful of air.

_They gave up on me._  She lets the breath go, slowly.  _So, why am I still looking for them?_

A crunch in the woods snaps Beth out of her thoughts. She reaches for the knife at her belt with her left hand, drawing her gun with her right and takes as many steps as she can, quietly, back towards her car. The sound is too isolated and sharp, an animal, maybe, but definitely not a walker.

She shuffles over to the back of her car without turning her back to the trees and pulls out one of Otis’ old hunting rifles in place of her handgun.

They’d managed to gather up most of the guns when they fled from the farm, but she found some things that Otis’ or maybe Patricia had stashed before they died, perhaps when they were not entirely trusting of their guests.

With the butt of the gun tight against her shoulder she approaches the trees, gauging that whatever she heard will still be a good two dozen yards away from the edge of the train tracks, unless it sprinted towards her, which she would’ve heard.

Using the scope to peer into the thick wood, she steadies the gun with a cautious exhale. For a few seconds she doesn’t see anything, no dinner even, then, the slightly bit of movement on the ground draws her attention to a familiar shape.

At first glance, it looks like a walker, collapsed on the ground where it fell, but it’s still moving, just a little. Wriggling enough that it managed to make itself known. Lowering her gun, Beth decides to at least put it down before she goes. The figure is so blended into the overgrowth that someone might easily walk right on top of it without noticing.

She’s slightly less cautious in her approach, now that she knows it’s just a single, nearly harmless walker. As she draws close with her knife at the ready, it seems more alert, until it lifts its head and then she realizes her mistake.

_Shit._ She retreats with an awkward, backwards sprint, putting a few lines of thick trees and bushes between them.

Her car is waiting patiently for her back on the tracks. She leaps inside and starts the engine, rotating the wheel backwards to retrace the lines she made when she was driving down the railroad and saw Maggie’s message.

It’s not until she’s racing away from the spot that she’s able to fully acknowledge what she saw.

That was a human being.

A living person.

By her recollection the last living people she saw were Hiatt and Wanda, and before that, the bitch that shot her.

She couldn’t even tell whether it was a man or a woman lying on the ground, but it wasn’t a walker. It wasn’t hungry for her, it was just tired. The person had covered themselves in mud and walker filth, probably as camouflage, so that they would be a little safer sleeping alone on the ground in the woods like that. It rose in a slow and clumsy way, like a walker would, but then it yawned. She’d never seen a walker yawn.

It’s filthy clothes were oversized and stained, same as it’s exposed neck and face. It’s hair was about shoulder-length and so matted and caked with mud it was practically a helmet against its skull.

Beth had never felt so clean in her life as when she realized that it was alive.

Back when she was still healing, her hair had gotten bad. It was too difficult to take care of it without upsetting the wound, and causing her scalp the kind of pain that left a lingering, excruciating pulse inside her head for hours afterwards.

As Hiatt had predicted, the exit wound was small enough that her skull healed over, though the round spot, about the size of a quarter, is slightly more sunken than the rest of her skull, and though her scalp had healed over the top as well, she has a bald patch that will absolutely be permanent.

Managing her hair on her own with her healing scalp proved to be too onerous, especially with so much hair. She’d finally chopped much of it off, in pure frustration, some sections were getting matted from neglect, and her unwillingness to cause herself more pain. It had grown out down to her shoulders now. It was difficult to get a decent view of the back of her own head, but she is sure the bald patch is visible, except when she occasionally ties her hair back with a scarf.

Except that it’s actually not visible to anyone, as she isn’t visible to anyone.

Chewing on her lower lip, Beth glances out the rearview mirror, thinking about about how tough it had been to take care of herself while she was still healing.

_If Wanda and Hiatt hadn’t seen me when I was a mess and decided to help me, I’d probably be dead._

That creature she’d seen in the woods needs help.

Her heart races. She’s thought long and lovingly about reuniting with her family. Sometimes, when it’s too painful to think about them, she thinks about the possibility of just finding someone, anyone, any  _good_ person who might be left in the world. She hates being alone, but she’s good enough at it that she’s afraid to approach anyone.

_It’s been almost eight months since you saw another human being. Might be another eight months before it happens again. It might be never._

Tapping the breaks, Beth stares out the back window, trying to make her choice.

_Could be dangerous. So, be careful._

“Everything is dangerous now,” she turns the car around, heart still rabbit-like.

She can’t risk just… talking to this person though. That’s too far. Too much of a risk.  _I’ll track them. I’ll watch them, and I’ll decide._  

* * *

“They look stable. They’ve probably been there a while.” Aaron speaks cautiously from just a few inches behind Daryl’s shoulder.

Daryl’s got the butt of Aaron’s riffle digging into the front of his chest as he watches through the scope. “How many y’count?” murmurs Daryl, he’s only seen two so far, a stocky Asian guy and a tall man wearing glasses held together with dirty silver ducted tape.

“Six. I think. Four men, one woman, and there’s someone who’s probably injured or sick, inside that green tent. The big guy went in there a half hour ago with some food and just left it there. I can’t see much, but from the shadow on the side of the tent, I’d guess it’s a pretty small person, who isn’t able to get vertical at the moment.” He tapped Daryl’s shoulder and motioned to the far side of the camp, through a trees, to a green tent.

The figure lying down in the green tent casts a petite shadow from the early morning glow. Daryl can see that Aaron is right, it a small person, probably flat on their back, either our cold or actively trying not to move from the pain.

“Nobody seems overtly psychotic.” Aaron added hopefully.

_Kinda unfortunate that’s a metric._  But Daryl holds his tongue. He’d given up on finding anyone this trip. His mind had been fully focused on getting back to the farm. Maybe there would still be some food storage in the basement. They’d had to run so fast they left some good stuff behind. Not to mention other supplies, tools and baby-clothes were one thing, but there was also Dale’s Winnebago that Daryl had never forgotten about. After standing in the same place for almost two years, the chance they could get it to run without replacing parts is negligible, but he’s got to try.

Being honest with himself, it’s photographs he is most determined to find.

He just wants to see her face. Wants to make sure that he put the pieces in the right place in his mind. Was she really like he remembers, or has he twisted her into something false? Something too perfect to have ever lived? He needs to see her face.

Ten miles out from the farm, they found this little camp. Aaron is right, it  _does_  look like they’ve been there a while. They ain’t smart. They aren’t real well hidden, though at least they’re out of the way enough that no one from the road would actually be able to see them right off.

The Asian man thumps the tall guy lightly on the shoulder as he walks off. The gesture is simple and oddly playful, but it reassures Daryl of something: these people are a group. Maybe not quite in the same sense as Rick had managed to make everyone a family, but the air is similar around these people. Maybe they aren’t smart. Maybe they aren’t family, but they aren’t just hanging out with other assholes to keep from dying. That’s something.

“Tall dude in the glasses don’t look like much of a survivor,” but he isn’t scoffing at them, just curious, how this man managed to survive so long when others, better prepared, haven’t. The awkward way he keeps adjusting his gun as he turns and walks back into camp gives it away. He hates wearing the thing, probably isn’t used to using it, still paranoid that it might go off and take one of his toes.

“No, but the rest do,” Aaron agrees, “and they protect him anyway. He’s not just dead weight. Same with the person in the tent.”

Daryl nods, shifting the scope around to try and catch a glimpse of someone else. “Kinda hard to tell with all that dirt on his face, but that Asian one seems…” Daryl trails off before he can add the word ‘familiar’ while the scope rests gently on the only women in the group, the one that Aaron mentioned.

She’s got a full head of curly brown hair, haphazardly pulled back for function. Though she wears a simple tank-top and jeans, there’s something undeniable stiff in the way she holds herself, as if she’s in uniform, at least in her mind. “Shepard. Gotta be shittin’ me.” He turns the scope back on the Asian man, then goes looking for the tall guy in the glasses, but runs across a gigantic beast of a man with a shaved head who he wasn’t about to forget any time soon. “That bastard tried to kill me once.”

“Which one?” Aaron asks sharply.

“Big guy… His name’s Lacari. I know these people.” Daryl lowers the riffle and faces Aaron, mouth a grim line. “It’s the group we came lookin’ for, if you can believe it. The dicks from the hospital. Looks like they ditched the uniforms and started livin’ on the road for some reason.”

Aaron’s eyebrows just about disappear into his hairline, “Is the doctor there?”

“Glasses,” Daryl nods, “He’s still alive.”

“Should we approach them now, since we know who they are? Or do we wait and make sure there aren’t others. Maybe they’ve joined up with people.”

“Maybe. With only six of them, seems like their numbers dropped some. Could be they had to take on others, or got taken themselves…” but Daryl shakes his head after a moment of thinking about it. “Nah. You go do your thing.”

It makes him nervous thinking about what happened the last time Aaron approached a group. Daryl was part of that group and they hadn’t been real kind to him. “If any of ‘em punches you in the face, can’t promise I won’t shoot him.”

Aaron’s eyes get wide, he knows Daryl isn’t joking, “Please don’t. They might react just as badly to me as Rick did, but hold on. Give it a chance. It worked out before, didn’t it?”

He nods so that Aaron won’t go in worried about it, but quietly acknowledges that his acquiesces is a bald-face lie and Aaron probably knows it.

As Aaron goes to approach the group, Daryl searches for a versatile vantage point where he’ll be able to watch the whole exchange go down with a barrel pointed straight at whoever’s head is closest to Aaron’s head.

The closer Aaron gets, the more Daryl’s hands start to harden, painfully tight against the riffle. He almost killed every one of these sons of bitches that day. He’d been just a single breath from emptying that clip in the hallway, putting bullets in all their heads.

The red spread across the floor, he heard someone yell out and the next thing he knew he was gathering her body into his arms.

They didn’t matter. Their heads could stay on their shoulders. Someone should hold her. He needed to hold her.

Now though, almost eight months removed from that day and with all the anger building up over that time, it was tempting to take them all down again. The suggested lines crossing inside the scope gave him an anxious, itchy feeling.

_Don’t pull the trigger, Aaron won’t like it._

He won’t shoot anyone, because Aaron asked him not to, but it’s only with the height of self-control, especially when the Apocalypse-Police greet Aaron with exactly as much friendliness as Daryl expected.

Aaron approaches the woman first, who’s on her own just outside the edge of the camp, checking traps. The second she draws her gun, Daryl decides he can’t do this. This set-up may have worked fine for Eric and Aaron, but Daryl has had to stand by and watch other people die, too many times to agree to hang back.

He knows why it’s a good strategy. He knows why it makes sense. He knows that he’s of more use to Aaron as a back-up plan in case things go badly, but there’s just too good a chance that one of these days, during an approach just like this, they just kill Aaron on sight, and all Daryl can do is watch.

Well aware that he’s failing his first official approach as an Alexandrian Scout, Daryl swears, throws the riffle on his back, picks up his crossbow and decides that there’s no way Aaron is doing this alone.

He makes a large, winding circle around the campsite, closing in on the scene like a carrion bird descending on its meal. They are loud, and their upset rings through the trees. Daryl can hear multiple voices demanding explanations, yelling and at least two of them are struggling for control over the situation.

Aaron’s voice, he can’t hear, but it makes sense he would back down until they’re done.

Finally, there’s enough air that he can catch Aaron’s voice,  _“I understand this is very upsetting and unexpected, but I assure you, I have no ill intentions. I’m a friend, and I have good news.”_

“Bullshit!” A deep voice shouts, and there’s some rumbling agreement.

“How many are with you?” another voice demands and then the voices go quiet enough that Daryl can’t make it out. He’s just about pin-pointed where they are in the camp, he slows his footsteps and draws near, crossbow raised and loaded.

In between the thumping heartbeats he manages to calm down slightly, but not enough to feel alright about this yet. He wants to rush in there and get Aaron away from them, but he knows that Aaron will want to talk to them, even if there’s a risk.

Finally, Daryl reaches a compromise with himself. He settles into the ground with his crossbow raised, prepared to sprint out of the trees if the thought strikes him, but still hanging-back, as Aaron ordered.

They’re looking at the pictures and they’ve all gone quiet. He can hear Aaron giving his speech, telling them all about how Alexandria is the haven they’ve wished for, silently, too scared to voice the fantasy.

“Is that Noah?!” Shepard’s voice seems to alter completely as her widening eyes fall on one of the pictures.

“Fuck me, it is,” says Licari.

“Yes,” Aaron recovers quickly as they all turn their suspicious eyes back to him. Somehow, the man manages to look comfortable while he’s being held down on his knees, arms outstretched into the air, where they can all see them. “We picked up a group several months back who came this way. To be honest, they sent us back here, said that we might find a group at a hospital that could join us.”

“Noah is  _there_?”

Aaron doesn’t look too keen to answer that question and admit that Noah only lived a few short months in Alexandria, but he’s spared telling this truth just yet, when Shepard demands another answer. “That group… the ones with Noah  _sent_ you to get us?” she sounds doubtful.

“Good people are hard to come by. There are some true predators in this world. The few of us who want some… semblance, of society, should stick together,” Aaron’s chest is rising and falling hard as he speaks, he seems nervous, and that makes Daryl nervous.

The man holding his shoulder down shifts his weight and moves just enough so that Daryl can see a long blade digging into Aaron’s back. By the expression on Aaron’s face, Daryl is certain that it’s already punctured the skin.

“That’s it,” Daryl grumbles as he hoists himself up to his feet, switching out the crossbow for the automatic on his back, slung right next to Aaron’s riffle, “Y’all ain’t shedding another drop of blood from any of mine.” He marches forward “HEY!” he shouts while still more or less under the cover of the trees, “Let the man up, ain’t nobody got mischief on their minds, unless it’s you.”

All the barrels turn away from Aaron and onto Daryl, but as he was counting on, the aim falters.

Licari’s jaw practically hits his chest when he sees who it is, and Daryl can barely hear him murmur “…fuck me twice,” a split second later.

“Put the guns down, ‘fore I drop every last one of you.” He keeps the barrel of the automatic weapon leveled at them, competing with their handguns, there’s no contest, even if one of them did manage to shot him, he’d be able to pop off too many rounds in the few seconds it would take them to drop him. “I know just how itchy your trigger-fingers are,” he adds with a growl.

“Daryl—I told you to  _wait_ ,” says Aaron desperately, but Daryl can detect a hint of relief in his voice, “Listen—we  _are_  telling the truth. I know that asking you to trust us is asking a lot, but it’s worth it, for what we’re offering.”

Still, they won’t lower their weapons.

The tall doctor in the glasses has kept a good amount of distance between himself and the confrontation this whole time, but he shuffles forward, slowly making his way out, gun drawn, though he looks as though he has no idea how to use it. “How does this work?” he demands, “If we do agree to go with you.”

Clearly relieved that he’s making headway, Aaron allows himself a quick sigh before he says, “We can give you a day to decide and pack everything up. We’ve got a place nearby where there might be some supplies. Before we head back, we’ve got to clean it out. It’s not a short journey from here, but we’ll lead you there, every step.”

“You mean you won’t tell us where we’re going?”

“Absolutely not,” says Aaron, and the firmness in his voice, if anything seems to serve as a reassurance, “We can’t risk you knowing where we are until we’re sure you’ll make it there. Not to be morbid, but the last thing we need is someone getting separated and using our location to try and convince marauders to go after a better prize instead.”

“Marauders,” the Asian man scoffs, but a moment later he seems to look worried, perhaps he thought about it long enough.

“Either way, we’re leaving,” promises Daryl, “Put your guns down and let him up.”

Licari is still surveying Daryl intensely, but finally lifts his hand and allows Aaron back up to his feet. “You’ll come back in a day, and we’ll decide?”

“If we see that you’ve got everything packed up and ready to go, then we’ll load up and get going. If it looks like you’re planning to stay, you’ll never see us again. We’ll just leave.”

* * *

For four days Beth tells herself she’s only following this woman because she happens to be heading in the same direction as the farm. It’s not because she needs anyone.

She doesn’t. She’s done just fine on her own. Sure, back when she was injured and sick, she needed help, but ever since she healed up, cut her hair and felt like herself again, she hasn’t needed anyone. She needs food, she hunts it. She needs water, she finds it. She needs weapons, she can find those too.

That was when she started leaving. Stretching out, further and further away from the farm. It had been almost a month this time, and she is finally going home.

Maybe though, it’s only because the woman in walker camouflage is heading in that direction. Following her is tedious, because she’s always on foot and she’s sneaky.

Twice, Beth loses her completely, but always manages to find her again. She tracks her footprints in the woods until she catches up to her, then she doubles back for her car, drives to a new, closer, but still out-of-the-way spot and starts all over again, tracking where the woman has gone.

The couple of far-away glimpses of her that she’s gotten tell Beth very little. She’s a small woman, thin and underfeed. She’s covered in so many layers of walker guts and grime that she doesn’t look human accept for her eyes. She isn’t much of a fighter either.

Beth wonders to herself how she’s survived so long without learning how to properly defend herself. Hiding and running can only get you so far.

With a sigh, she lowers her scope. The woman’s scraped up her arm badly climbing through a window when she was looking for supplies. She tried to clean it that morning, but it kept bleeding and apparently the walkers can smell that, even through endless layers of their own old decaying filth on her skin.

Now, she’s stuck up in a tree, where she’s been for the last three hours, four walkers waiting impatiently at the base of the trunk. They’re barely ten miles from the farm. If Beth is going to ask her to join her, it needs to be soon. Someone needs to teach this woman to fight. To take care of herself.

_Maybe I don’t need anyone. But she does._

The woman doesn’t look like she realizes this, however. Even stuck up in a tree with one arm bloodied, she just looks tired. She’s found a nice joint between the trunk and a hefty limb and she’s gazing off, occasionally glancing down to confirm that the walkers are still there. It’s only four. She should be able to handle four walkers. Everyone should.

For whatever reason, she doesn’t.

_This has gone on long enough._  Nervous, but confident that it’s the right thing to do, Beth draws near to the tree, the walkers and the woman. “ _We’ll met again,_ ” she starts to sing, gradually allowing her voice to grow stronger as she finished the phrase, “ _don’t know where, don’t know when, but I know we’ll meet again, some sunny day!”_ The walkers stumble away from the tree, drawn to her voice. She notices the woman stiffen from her perch, but doesn’t look up to see her. She focuses all her attention on the walkers instead.

The most enthusiastic one reaches her first, Beth rushes behind a tree, using the trunk to shield most of her body as she grabs one arm, yanks it into the trunk with a sickening crack of its ribs before she drives her dagger into its skull. It must be more recently dead, because the bone is still hard, it takes an extra jerk to get her knife free and by then, the next walker has reached her, but she keeps backing away, and sprinting to break them up. It’s always easier to deal with walkers one at a time. She staggers them through the trees until she’s killed all four. Forced to lead them deeper into the woods, she realizes she’s further away from the woman than she meant to be. She sprints back to finally introduce herself to the woman she’s been stalking, and finds the tree empty.

… _She ran for it._  Beth realizes, trying not to be too disappointed. It’s not an irrational reaction. In fact, it’s the exact reaction that Beth had when she first saw the woman. All the same, she was hoping to do this now and not have to track her farther.

Her tracks are wild this time. She must have been running. For a mile or more, her tracks are far apart and occasionally scattered, as if she’s checking behind her every few dozen yards. Still, she hasn’t broken away from her trajectory. She’s heading in the direction of the farm.

Frowning, Beth notices how her footsteps are getting close together again, but they are still wild, still unbalanced. Her footwork gets heavier and clumsier, losing all caution. A noticeable upset in the dirt makes Beth realize that she’s tripped and fallen. There are drops of blood on the ground.

_Oh no._ She hadn’t even considered that the woman might have lost a bit too much blood, missed a few too many meals, be a little too dehydrated to handle running so far, so fast.

The sound of voices makes her stop short with a gasp against the trunk of a tree. Carefully creeping forward to see, she finds the woman collapsed on the ground about twenty yards ahead. Standing around her are three men. Uneasily, Beth feels like there’s something familiar about them.

But they look wrong.

They should be in uniform. Officers.  _Licari, Franco and Tanaka._  Their names might as well be written on their backs like they’re on a sports team.

Her blood runs cold, even as Licari carefully lifts the woman up into his arms, “Run ahead and tell the doc, will ya?”

“Doctor Edwards,” she knows its him and just saying his name makes her squirm a little.

_They’re going to take her back to the hospital and make her work for them._

_“You owe us.”_  The memory comes back to her as she balls up both fists around the handle of her gun and knife. “Like hell I owe you anythin’.”

But something seems wrong. Apart from the fact that they aren’t in uniform, his instructions for Tanaka to run ahead and tell Dr. Edwards only make sense if Edwards is nearby. When she knew him, he would never leave the hospital.

_People change. I’ve changed._

Edwards would only leave the hospital if he absolutely had to. He killed to stay there. If he’s out here, that means more of them are, maybe all of them.

To confirm her suspicious and to try and find answers, Beth follows at a distance as they carry the women back to their camp. Sure enough, it looks fairly permanent. Dr. Edwards is there, looking entirely out of place with a knife in his boot and a gun on his hip.

Beth finds herself racing back to her car before she can see any more. She doesn’t know what to think about all of it. Rationally, she knows that it’s good that the woman is with a doctor. That cut on her arm was bad, and it was bound to get infect with the amount of walker guts all over her.

Then again, what will her treatment cost her?

_I’ll go back to the farm and regroup. I know where they’re at now and it doesn’t look like they’re headin’ anywhere soon. I’ll keep an eye on them. If I need to get her out, I’ll get her out._

She’s got just enough gas to get back to the farm, then she can fill up there and form a more solid plan. “I really don’t want to kill them,” she admits to herself quietly, “But maybe they earned it.” 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hope nobody minds the MASSIVE time jump for Beth, but I figured her recovery would be more of the same as last chapter. Some details about the months she was alone will come out in later sections. For right now though, Beth and Daryl’s timelines are just about caught up, and they are within ten miles of each other, so cheer up!
> 
> As always, thank you so much for taking the time to read my story:D Let me know what you think; suggestions, constructive criticism, questions, comments, jokes etc. are always appreciated. I love you guys!
> 
> Shalott - Emilie Autumn


	6. Up The Road

Still a mile out from the farm, Daryl slows his bike down and signals to Aaron before he stops and shuts the engine off, glancing back at the stretch of road at their backs. It’s clean, compared to other parts of the road, all strewn with rusting cars, rotting flesh and battle scars. This road is just empty and dusty, fading into obscurity on the horizon. He sees the shape appear, dark on the fuzzy line in the distance where the road and the sky merge. The dark mark grows larger finally it starts to slow, still a ways away, but close enough that Daryl can be sure of what it is.

_Maybe the Grady bunch aren’t so stupid._ He unscrews the cap on his canteen and takes a swig, waiting for Aaron to get out of his car, check their surroundings and approach Daryl cautiously. Daryl notices Aaron’s eyes get snagged on the dot way in the sky as well and feels a little swelling of appreciation. He sees it too.

“When did you notice?” Aaron doesn’t raise his voice much above a whisper.

“Just a hunch, really, but back when the road was winding, it brought us a little closer together and I thought I could hear another engine somewhere, mixed into our noise,” Daryl gestures to the dot.

“What do you want to do about it?” Aaron takes the canteen from Daryl, eyebrows knit with a touch of worry.

“Might be that they’re just cautious. Wanna see what we’re up to. Or, it’s possible that they got a plan,” Daryl shrugs, “they could separate us, kill us and take what we got. You mentioned to ‘em that we were going for supplies. That might be their goal.”

“You were saying about how it might just be caution?” Aaron asked hopefully, but there was a storm behind his eyes as he considered the darker possibility.

“Either way, important thing is to know for sure. If they’re the marauding types, we don’t want ‘em. If they’re cautious, that’s good to know,” Daryl started to make a plan, searching his mind to try and remember the area.

“Almost, reassuring,” Aaron mused.

“Yeah. Having smart on our side can make a world of difference. Dumb shit gets you killed.”

“It’s just too bad that ‘dumb shit’ includes trusting absolutely anyone, these days.”

They are being followed. Probably by someone from Grady. If their plan is to steal supplies and leave Daryl and Aaron dead, it will be hard to know about it until they engage. If Grady is just keeping an eye on them because they didn’t actually trust their saviors then they’re just smarter than Daryl previously thought. Not wanting to risk losing his bike or anything else, but understanding how crucial it is to know why they’re being followed, Daryl makes a decision.

Leaving their vehicles on the side of the road, Daryl instructs Aaron up into a tree and out of sight. He makes an obvious path in the woods, leading towards an old abandoned shack about a quarter of a mile away. Coming back to where he left Aaron, he’s careful to hide his tracks, before he too, scrambles up a hefty beech tree.

It’s nearly an hour before it pays off, but with both eyes on the road he eventually hears the fall of heavy boots on asphalt and sees a long shadow stretch beside his bike. Listening, he can’t hear anything besides the one person.

Rustling and shuffling grows louder until Licari is right beneath them, crouched on the ground, inspecting the obvious, fake tracks that Daryl made for him. He’s got a big knife held loosely, parallel to his forearm in one hand, and he’s got a handgun at his waist, but he isn’t as armed to the teeth as either Aaron or Daryl, and it looks like he came alone.

Across the way, Daryl catches Aaron’s eye. He looks hopeful, but still, he doesn’t make a move. Just because it seems Licari came alone and only marginally armed doesn’t mean he didn’t follow them with intention to kill. Maybe someone is hanging back, waiting. Maybe he’s just an arrogant bastard who thinks he can handle both of them on his own.

Licari starts to follow the tracks. Once he’s out of sight, Daryl signals for Aaron to stay, but starts to make his way down the tree, as quietly as he can. He follows him at a winding distance until they’re within sight of the shack. Licari can clearly see that the tracks lead to the shack, but he doesn’t approach, he just watches a few minutes, eyes getting tight and back tense.

Definitely doesn’t seem like the demeanor of a man intent on murdering them.

Satisfied, Daryl hurries back to the road. For a moment he’s uneasy when he notices Aaron’s tree is empty. But a few shuffling clicks up on the road alert him to where his partner has gone and he can breathe easy again once he sees that he’s fine.

Aaron appears back on the asphalt of the road, framed between the car and the bike, he gestures towards where Licari abandoned his car and shakes his head.

Licari is alone.

Shoulder to shoulder, Daryl and Aaron march in full sight to where they left Licari, weapons drawn and ready. They find him just where Daryl left him, alone and hunkered down in the brush, watching the shack. He snaps to his feet when he hears them coming, eyes fierce against the barrel of Aaron’s gun and the point of Daryl’s crossbow. He doesn’t seem too terribly surprised that they weren’t in the shack, although maybe a little sheepish. His red face twists slightly into a snarl, but he doesn’t bother to say anything to defend himself.

“Why are you following us, Licari?” asks Aaron, and it’s a good thing he spoke up, because Daryl can’t imagine himself ever posing that question to anyone without making it sound like he’s ready to rip into them with teeth, arrow and bullet. Aaron’s voice is calm, inquiring as if the matter is only of mild intellectual concern.

“…You two, show up out of  _nowhere_ ,” Licari grips his knife firmly in one hand, though he’s gotta know it’s practically useless to him under these conditions. “ _You_  especially,” he cocks his head at Daryl. “Just expect us to trust you?” he bites.

“No,” says Aaron softly and once again, Daryl can’t help but think that Aaron has said exactly what he would, but that the man manages to say it in a better way, a way that isn’t likely to start a fight. “We’d be worried if you did trust us so quickly.”

Licari’s lip curls a little, but he closes his eyes softly a moment and then says, “We want it to be true,” making a visible effort to soften his tone, “But we don’t know you.”

“Fair enough,” Aaron nods, “So, come with us now. Ask questions. Get to know us a little, if that’s what you need to make a decision.”

Snorting, for a minute it doesn’t look like Licari is going to bite, “You never really get to know a girl on the first date.”

“Either you followed to kill us, or you followed to learn more about us. Which is it?” Aaron gets right to the point, but still, somehow manages to make this statement without sounding confrontational.

In reply, Licari tilts his head down a little, looking at the dirt, pointedly putting his knife back in the sheath and holding out his empty hands, palms out.

Daryl lowers his crossbow, and beside him he can feel Aaron relaxing slightly as well. “C’mon,” Daryl scoffs and gestures for both of them to follow him back to the road. “We’ll save some gas by carpooling,” he adds in a grumble.

After hiding Daryl’s bike and Aaron’s car, the three of them squeeze into Licari’s truck. It’s got more space in back for these supplies anyway. The mile drive to the farm is tense. There’s a line of sweat that steadily gets replaced every few minutes after Licari brushes it away in annoyance. It’s not that hot outside. Daryl can’t help but wonder if the man has been around anybody besides his cop buddies in all the time after the world ended.

“The sixth member of your group, what’s wrong with them?” Aaron took the passenger seat, so that he could watch Licari drive, from the back seat Daryl is determined not to speak at all unless it’s to give directions.

“Gonna take a left up here,” he mutters.

Licari spares each of them a glance, actually puts his turn signal on which makes Daryl raise an eyebrow at him. “We just found her yesterday, out in the woods.” Licari explains, “she hasn’t said more than two words to anyone but the doctor. Sounds like they knew each other... before. Not well. She’s hurt, got a nasty cut on her arm and hasn’t had a good meal in longer than she can remember.”

In spite of himself, Daryl feels a prickling in his heart at hearing this. He hopes it’s all true. Whatever mistakes they might’ve made, at least they’re still trying to be good people. Some part of him contorts with guilt at this thought.  _How can they be anything but monsters._

“Says her name is Lily,” Licari adds, “And that someone was following her… but the doc doubts it. She’s been out there alone too long. Started to imagine things.”

“End of that road, you can’t miss it,” Daryl gestures out the window, throat a little tight. Some part of him still wants to kill all of them. He takes a deep breath and tries to remember.

_She said there were still good people._   _Don’t walk away from the proof._  But the only reason he ever believed that was because of her in the first place. It was so much easier to think of Licari and the others as a necessary evil. As a mission. They couldn’t actually be the good people she was talking about. Not when they were the reason he lost her.

“Noah had some stuff to say ‘bout your set-up at the hospital,” Daryl hears himself speak up before he realizes that his anger has boiled over, past the point where he can just give directions and sit tight.

Licari looks a little pale at that, glances at Daryl in the rearview. Up ahead the Greene family farm is in sight. It tugs at Daryl a little and he has to glance away as they approach. It’s like seeing an old friend, but all scarred up and bent out of shape. A ruin on the landscape.

“…Boy had some things to say ‘bout how things worked at Grady.” Truthfully, Noah didn’t like to talk about it. He’d only said a handful of things about the year that he spent living as a slave for Dawn and her post-apocalyptic precinct, but Daryl could pick up on things. They kept weaker people around to serve them. They  _used_  people. They gave them shelter and food so they could survive, but only so that they would be tied to them. It was a sick system. “It ain’t like that in Alexandria.”

“Things are different now,” Licari’s voice falls quiet. Though his words take on a toneless quality, Daryl can still hear the weary sincerity in them. “Things have been different for a long time.”

“Better be,” mumbles Daryl.

The truck slows to a stop at the end of the driveway.

“It is,” says Licari firmly, “It wasn’t okay, how things were. But, Noah running—and  _everything_  that happened after we took Beth—”

“ _Don’t_  talk about her.” Daryl cuts Licari off sharply with a growl and opens his door, spilling out of the truck with his jaw and fists clenched. He marches a few strides away from the truck, trying to calm himself with a few deep draws.

The air is familiar, the scent of it and the way it feels washes over him. This was when it started to be okay, really. Sometimes, he thought about Rick showing up as the moment when the end of the world wasn’t the end of Daryl Dixon, but Rick was still getting his footing as their leader, still mourning the loss of society, of law and order. Daryl never had those things, and after the world ended, life hadn’t changed much, until Merle was gone. Then life collapsed for a while.

Daryl’s life had never been okay. Up to the point that he came to the farm it was just one disaster after another, another punch to the gut ever since he was born. At the Greene family farm he’d had a purpose, first it was to find Sophia, then it was to help the group find itself. Feeling like someone needed him had been a new experience at the time. His whole life, no one had ever needed him. This farm felt different for a day or two.

Then it was gone.

The house feels tired and lonely, staring at him with broken windows through a termite-eaten front porch. He has to look away a moment to collect himself and then he sees it. Aaron and Licari already saw it, and are walking towards it.

There’s a massive grave in the front lawn. Daryl isn’t sure how he knows it’s a grave, but there’s just something about it that tells him there’s bones underneath, probably a lot of bones.

Earth is piled up high and packed, dotted with heavy stones. It’s been awhile since it was dug, that’s clear. There’s weeds and grass starting to work their way up over the mound.

“Some kind of mass grave?” Aaron looks to Daryl, expecting he’ll know.

“Wasn’t here before,” Daryl admits. Looking around the lawn. This place was crawling with walkers last he was here, and they were plowing them down right and left. There should be bones scattered in the grass, but there’s nothing. Someone cleaned it up.

_It don’t matter. She’s dead._

_It does matter._  Swallowing, Daryl turns away from the grave and strides right up the breaking porch and towards the front door. It’s shut, and under the heavy shadow he can see a message painted over the door.

 

BAD HEAD INJURY

ALONE

MIGHT DIE ANY DAY

TETHER MY ARM TO THE BED AT NIGHT

IN CASE I TURN

DON’T LET ME HURT ANYONE

 

Daryl stares at the strange request to be put down for almost a full minute while the other two come up behind him. He doesn’t know how he feels about finding that someone else came and lived here after they left. It makes sense, the place is still mostly intact, compared to others, and it’s nice and out-of-the-way, but a stranger making this place their home feels wrong. Besides that, there are practical issues to think about. What if they’ve used all the supplies? Ripped up the baby clothes for bandages?

Burned the photo albums.

Aaron reaches past Daryl and bangs loudly on the door, but there’s no reply, from either human or walker. They wait long enough to decide there isn’t a horde of walkers inside, ready to run for the door. Daryl opens the door, at the ready, but room by room they sweep the house and don’t find any living or dead person. Aaron says the sheets in one upstairs beds are rumpled but not dusty. It’s been slept in recently, but there’s no other sign.

“Food should be in the basement, if there’s anythin’ left,” grumbles Daryl.

“Come with me, Licari,” Aaron motions him away from Daryl.

Daryl doesn’t much like the idea of leaving Aaron alone with this guy, but Aaron isn’t stupid, he must think he’s got a handle on this. Daryl will just have to keep his ears keen, in case they’re wrong about Licari.

In any case, Daryl needs a moment alone.

In the living room he finds an album already out on the coffee table. It’s coated in dust. He wonders if someone pulled it out because of curiosity and then never put it back, before they succumbed to the bad head injury written about on the front door. He flips through the baby pictures quick, finally deciding that he might as well do the thing right, he starts to remove a few of them. Maggie will want them, he tells himself, but sometimes he wonders if that’s true.

Maggie wants to survive, and sometimes it seems like she doesn’t know how to do that unless she’s looking forward. Always to the future, never the past.

Still, he removes a picture of her with her dad and her brother out by the duck pond, and another from her birthday with her stepmother’s arms around her neck, where everyone seems happy.

Beth looks so young in most of these pictures, not like the woman he remembers. She’s just a slip of a thing, a big pair of blue eyes with long blonde pigtails that end in curls. She’s smiling in every picture, and it makes him feel warm to see that smile again, to think about what life must’ve been like for her before the world ended.

His world was always ugly, but for her, everything had been sweet, at least for a while. She’d had a good family that loved her, friends, horses, a big wide world full of possibilities, plenty to eat, a safe place to rest when she was tired. Nothing was coming for her.

Finally, near the back of the album he finds the most recent pictures. It’s still not quite how he remembers her. She’d changed a lot in the few years after they left the farm. The girl in the picture is still living in a world where the dead stay dead, where her dad is around, and where there aren’t any bullets with her name on them.

But he didn’t imagine how beautiful she was. He didn’t make that up. He didn’t make up that clever little flash in her eyes either. The corner of his mouth tugs upwards, and in a moment he can barely see the image, his eyes blur out and he cusses.

_It’s never going to stop hurting._

Losing his brother had been akin to being run over by a truck. He could still remember that, but he learned to work through it. He learned to set it aside. Hershel too. That hurt like a son of a bitch. With effort, he could let him go.

But  _Beth._  Something is different about losing her. It doesn’t just hurt, it festers. Watching her fall tore a hole in his chest and still, it throbs. Sometimes, he imagines that it hurts worse than anything he’s ever felt before. Maybe it does, or maybe his memory just isn’t so good.

One thing is for sure. It will last.

He can’t set her aside. Can’t let her go. He shuffles together some pictures of the Greene family and puts them in the pocket of his satchel to give to Maggie when he gets back. He picks out the picture of Beth that he’ll keep for himself from among the back pages of the album. She’s standing out in the yard, back against the trunk of a white ash tree, smiling straight ahead at him, like she’s got a beautiful life to look forward to.

* * *

 

“I’m not fighting it anymore.” Beth talks to a broken mirror in the bathroom as she tries to make a plan. “I’m not. I wanna remember.” Some part of it might be a lie. Ever since she remembered what happened to her parents and Shawn, she’s been afraid to dig too deep, afraid that it will happen again, and that the memories will just pour over her during some vulnerable moment.

_What about the baby?_  What if she had to watch sweet Judith die and there was nothing she could do about it? What about Daryl? What if he was torn apart in front of her like Patricia? What if she was too weak to save any of them. Beth grips the edge of the counter a moment and bites down a little too hard on her tongue, squeezing her eyes shut against the image in the cracked, filthy mirror. She hisses out a captive breath and backs away, releasing her grip. There’s a thick layer of dust growing there. In the month that she’s been away, more rain and winds have brought more of the elements into the house.

She can’t remember much about Grady. But she doesn’t want to, and somehow that seems to make a difference. She’s remembered some things, gradually over the past several months, but most of it came back right away, in just the few days that followed her waking up. Sometimes, she thinks the things she lost might be gone forever. Sometimes she wonders if she’s making some memories up.

But before she takes this leap, before she talks to the folks of Grady, she ought to remember as much as she can about who they were. If she can.

She could never really put down roots here, even though it was her home. She cleaned up the bones in the yard, because someone should put them to rest. She put things into just enough order that she could live here, without feeling like an animal, but she couldn’t bring herself to do more than fix the broken front door, when it came to real repairs. She couldn’t fix the roof, or the windows or tear down what was left of the barn. If she started working on the house, it would mean she was planning to stay. Alone.

_You don’t have to be alone._  The woman she’d followed for days wasn’t a predator. To a detrimental degree, she wasn’t dangerous. The cops seemed to have changed, to the point that they might actually be helping her. Genuinely. Or, at least, Beth wanted to believe that was what was happening. It was more likely that they were carrying on their typical abusive ways, but she wanted to give them the benefit of the doubt.

_If I watch them and they are good people, trying to do right, then what? Join them? Invite them to the farm?_  It wasn’t exactly crazy, but it made her feel sick. Not just because of the kind of people they had been back when she knew them, but also, because it would feel like it meant she was giving up.

She’d searched for her family all this time and hadn’t found any sign of them, besides one message from her sister, that wasn’t intended for her. Maybe early on, if she’d joined up with Wanda and Hiatt, it wouldn’t be so bad, but after months of being alone, and months of looking for them, to join someone else would feel like the end of her search.

_I can’t just pretend I never saw the Grady folks._   _But if they’re good people I should join them, and I don’t know if I want that, and if they’re not then I should kill them, and I don’t know if I want that either._ Rubbing at her forehead, Beth goes to bed, finally, tying her wrist up to the bedpost out of habit. Just in case. After so many months she feels more and more confident each time she closes her eyes that she  _will_  open them again.

_There’s no hurry_. Thoughts about the folks from Grady and the woman she followed keep drifting back to keep her mind from quieting down for the night. It will probably be days before that woman is in any condition to go anywhere. That camp looked fairly permanent. She can give herself a day to rest before she returns to stalk them. That won’t be much of a risk.

A day to sleep. And think. Remember.

She has some jerkied deer in her pack and two full water bottles from the closest well, and she’s holed up in her old bedroom. It’s one of the last rooms in the house that still has the windows intact, even if the mirror in the bathroom is broken. There is nothing to keep her from staying curled up in bed for the whole day, except when she wakes up with a keen pinch in her bladder.

She jerks her boots on and grabs her pack and her handgun out of habit. She never leaves the house without all her supplies ready. Just in case she has to run again. She treks out a little ways into the woods, past where she hid her car, and finds a place to squat down. The whole farm is quiet and isolated. One of the first mistakes they’d made in the new world was to think that meant they were safe. They hadn’t known about herds yet. Or about what losing everything would do to some people. She checks her car, more out of habit than anything, to make sure it’s really as well hidden as she wants it to be and then she heads back to her room.

Sitting on the bed again, she almost has her boots off when she hears it.

A truck engine rumbles in the distance.

The sound is stacking against itself, rolling closer and at a steady rate. It’s headed right for her. She yanks her boot back on and runs to the window.

_“Shhi…_ ” there’s a truck, and with a whine in the back of her throat she can already see it’s coming too fast. There’s no way she can be properly gone before they get here. She’ll have to lit out the back.

Grabbing her pack and her gun, she half falls down the stairs on light feet, just as the truck comes to a stop in front of the house. Trying to keep her movements quiet, she scurries towards the back of the house, silently making it to the back door just as she hears heavy boots coming up the creaking porch out front.

Once she’s outside, she stays tight to the edge of the house, not wanting to run out in the open where they might see her. She couldn’t see well enough into the truck to count how many of them there were. On careful tiptoes, she shuffles around the side of the house, as slowly as she can, trying not to breathe too loudly. It doesn’t sound as though they’ve come into the house yet.

Her heart beats faster as she realizes that she can’t hear them at all. Either they’re standing very still for some reason, or they know she’s there and are trying to creep up on her.

A loud  _BANG BANG_  makes her jump. It’s coming from the front door. Silence follows and feeling more anxious she dares to turn glance around the corner of the house and catches a quick glimpse of three adult males before she sinks behind the corner of the house again. She barely saw them, but she saw enough to make her even more nervous. She barely saw a man dressed all in black step through the front door, he was mostly hidden in the shadow of the house. The other two waited at his back, flanking him. One, she could barely see, because he was mostly obscured by the large man with a muscular bearing who she was almost certain was Licari.

There’s no one waiting in the truck that she can see. Just three men. It could be worse, but it’s still bad enough to make her heart race. Three walkers is cake. Three live, grown, battle-hardened men? One of whom might not have such a sweet recollection of her? Better not to engage.

The quickest route to her car puts her in view of the truck. Just in case they do have someone else around, she doesn’t want to make that run. Better to go the long way and stay out of sight.

As she hears the three men go into the house and start to clear it, she shuffles back the way she came, slowly.

They might not mean any harm. They might just be looking for supplies, looking for shelter. Maybe they wouldn’t hurt her, but she won’t risk it. Trying to be as ghost-like as possible, she glided slowly towards the back of the house again.

“ _Canned peaches_ ,” she hears what is definitely Licari’s voice and jumps, startled by how close it is. Glancing down, she seems that she almost stepped right into the view of window beside the basement. Glancing back the way she’s come she can see that there is a window on either side of her. She can’t walk one way or the other without them seeing her.

Gritting her teeth, she backs up against the wall of the house and slides down into a sitting position, gun at the ready, just in case.

“ _Well, it’s something_ ,” says another voice.

“ _When you guys said you had supplies nearby…_ ” Licari trails off, doesn’t sound like he’s accusing, but there’s definitely a question in there.

“ _It’s really more of a personal pilgrimage,”_ says the second voice; it’s a milder, calmer presence than the brash Licari that she remembers.

“ _Is that why your friend needs some time alone?_ ”

The milder voice takes a few minutes to reply and she can hear shuffling as they stuff the balance of the food storage into their packs. “ _I followed him for weeks before I ever spoke to his group.”_  He pauses in filling his pack and she can hear him sigh before he goes on, “ _I didn’t approach them until I knew they could be trusted, the same way I know that the night will fall, without exception to end every day. I don’t feel that way about any of you. We’re here, because he vouched for you, in spite of what you took from him. Don’t forget that._ ”

“ _I don’t mean any disrespect to the man… you gotta understand, we’ve been led by three different people who lost their minds. I don’t like watching sanity slip away from someone who’s supposed to have my back, y’know?_ He can go on any personal pilgrimage he wants,” Licari’s voice gets clearer as he approaches the window and Beth budges up tighter against the wall. “But, I gotta look out for mine. If we’re joining up with you guys, I need to know… is he taking us with him to crazy town? Are you sure he’s okay? Are you sure he’s  _stable_?”

“ _Of course he’s unstable_ ,” the milder man states with a depth of compassion that Beth hadn’t expected. “ _I think we all are. That’s how things work now._ ”

“…Has he got a handle on it?”

“ _He’s probably better at handling his instability than anyone left on this planet.”_  There’s a lighter tone in the man’s voice, but his next statement carries weight again. “ _Don’t talk about what happened. He doesn’t talk about it. He’s not ready. Tell all your people_.”

“Yeah, yeah…” Licari trails off, thoughtful. “I mean, I wondered, at the time. What she might’ve meant to him.”

For several seconds the three of them are quiet, and Beth lets shallow breaths move in and out of her tense body, not daring to flinch in either direction in case Licari hears her, just inches away from the window.

“ _She meant everything_.”

In another minute she can hear them cleaning out the rest of the food. “ _Let’s go,_ ” says Licari, “ _We can check the bedrooms upstairs. I think I saw some clothes._ ”

Once their footfalls leave the basement, she skirts passed the window, but doesn’t feel as eager to take off right away. Licari and the rest of the people from Grady are thinking of joining up with someone else? If they can move forward, if they can help people who need them, really help them, shouldn’t she give them the benefit of the doubt?

She stops around the back of the house again and pauses in her flight, closing her eyes tight, she tries to remember what things were like at Grady. She only remembers being afraid and mistrustful of everyone. She remembers that some of the men used to abuse the female ‘orderlies’ their  _slaves_. The really bad ones were Gorman and O’Donnell, both very dead, thanks to her. She doesn’t remember hearing anything about Licari. He never treated her badly. Never really interacted with her much at all though.

And he didn’t do anything to stop it.

It doesn’t feel like the same group. He isn’t talking about them like she would have imagined him talking about them back when she was there. Maybe she’s reading too much into his concern for his group and the way that he scooped that woman up and carried her back to camp. Maybe.

Maybe not.

The thought still twists like a knife in her chest.

Licari might be alright. The folks from Grady might’ve changed.

The man with the mild voice seems alright. He’s got so much confidence in his friend, all dressed in black with a bowed head trapped inside the shadows of her house.

_I want my people._  She lets out a whimper and covers her mouth. Beth hates being alone, but even if these guys don’t seem so bad, they aren’t her family.

They aren’t Daryl.

Her heart throbs painfully inside of her ribs.

_I wasn’t happy at Grady. The last time I remember being happy…_  It was with him. She’s sure of it. She’s sure that he was the last bit of happiness she lost. Staring into the tree line, she wants to run, wants to get as far away from these people as possible and walk the world, looking for what’s gone away.

_Run away from home and never look back._  She breathes out slow, overcome by a heady feeling like she’s been crying for hours, though her eyes are dry.

Almost without realizing what she’s doing, she turns towards the window, intending to look into her childhood home once more before she abandons it.  _I’m sorry._  She can’t make herself trust them. Can’t imagine being with anyone else. Being alone isn’t what she wants, but she’s been doing it for so long, it feels comfortable. It’s safe.

Decided on a course of action, Beth inches towards the window, to check and make sure the way is clear before she runs. The glass is broken between her and the inside of the house. She rises up on her tip-toes to look down the hallway towards the living room. Standing square under the light flooding in through another broken window, she sees the third man.

He’s got his back to her, with his head bowed low. Hanging off his shoulders in stitches that she remembers with perfect detail, are a pair of angel’s wings that she thought she’d lost.

* * *

 

Daryl lets Licari and Aaron go upstairs without him, mumbling something about how he’ll keep watch, make sure no one approaches the house without them knowing it. It’s not really necessary, but it’ll give him the few more minutes he needs to quit grinding his teeth and bring his head down from a rolling boil to a simmer. He had to come back here, the same way that you’ve gotta re-break a bone that healed wrong. At least, that’s how he thought about it a few hours ago, now that he’s here, he’s not so sure. This wound isn’t healing, it’s been almost eight months and he’s still bleeding out in a steady trickle.

He doesn’t need to consider why. He’s had plenty of sleepless nights thinking about what he could’ve done differently, and about what things might be like if she had lived. If he hadn’t let her get taken. If he hadn’t let them kill her.

He’s never been any good at this stuff anyway. On any level. Even now, he barely understands what he felt for her, and back when they were together, he had no idea how to take that feeling and turn it into something human, something she might understand. Even if he could’ve figured that part out, doubtless, he’s shit at follow-through. He isn’t the sort of person who looks to the future.

…Except that was exactly what she’d had him doing. The thing she’s _still_ got him doing. She made him hope again. Made him look into a better place, somewhere in the days ahead. Made him imagine himself there. With her.

He put her picture away too soon. He isn’t done looking at her.

Pulling the picture out of his pocket again he falters a little as he unfolds the thick paper, finding her eyes immediately. His hands are steadier now, but his heart still trembles.

“ _Daryl_!”

He definitely heard it, but it’s impossible and for a moment the thought that he’s finally lost his mind blows through even his instinct to turn towards the voice.

_That’s Beth Greene calling to you. She needs you._  She’d called out to him before, because she needed his help. She’d said his name soft too, with a little laugh on her lips. He’s heard her say his name in his dreams, and now it’s real inside his head, just as he remembers it.

“ _DARYL DIXON_!” The second time, his ears are buzzing same as his head and he whirls around just in time to see her come in through the back door. The woman he lost, eyes blue as shattering glass.

There’s no reason, no thinking it through, no consideration that this house is haunted with the ghost of her, or that Licari might’ve snuck up and driven a knife up into the back of his skull and she’s here to lead him through the veil.

All of those explanations come in flashes after he reacts, after his body succumbs to his soul’s desire and he doesn’t even care whether it’s real or not. He wants to let it be real for however long he can. He closes the distance between his shaken body and the angel, crashing into her.

Already his knees give out underneath him, he pulls her down with him to the ground.

She’s solid and warm and if possible, rocked worse than he is, trembling, as her arms slide over his shoulders. Pressing into his back as she tightens the embrace and sinks into him. Her fall of blonde hair comes over his eyes.

He presses his mouth into the curve of her shoulder, soft and smelling just like her, just as he remembers. Her strong fingers weave their way up the back of his neck and into his hair. His breathing is ragged and at first he can’t bring himself to pull away from her skin, even to look at her again. He can hear her crying too, and clinging to him as tightly as he clings to her.

His heart beat pounds through both of them, and then he picks up  _her_  rhythm, feeling what it means, what he thought was long quiet. Her pulse matches his own as she’s breathing all around him, fast and shallow, tears fall. She’s alive. She’s the same girl, the same soul he thought he’s lost, with living flesh and blood, every bit of her and he can feel it for himself. She’s all around him and coiled into his chest.

* * *

 

So many months she thought about seeing him again; would he be different? When the moment comes and she realizes it’s really him standing there, she doesn’t even consider how it’s not like she imagined. She doesn’t have time, because her feet are already running, impatient to get to him. Once she recognized him, she isn’t in control of herself, she just cries out his name, as a whimper at first and then a shout, scrambling to get back into the house, to be with him.

It she’d had a little more presence of mind, she might’ve considered the dangers of surprising a man like that, but she didn’t. She probably wouldn’t have cared, even if she had given herself a minute, even if she was able to physically force herself to hold still and consider the situation for even a single heartbeat.

He looks different. His hair has gotten longer and seems more in the way than it ever was, and he way he holds himself seems somehow even more tense than she remembered, the sinew all through his back, neck and arms is like stone, and the look on his face crushes her soul; his stare is so hard. Then she meets those blue eyes, broken against her and it’s like she can take her first real breath in months.

He rushes her, knocking her down and pulling her into his knees as he collapses on the floor with a crash. Kneeling into him, the only reason she doesn’t topple off balance and into the wall is because he’s holding her too tight. Forcing this newfound air right out of her lungs, as he gasps into her shoulder, arms constricting her ribs.

As firmly as he squeezes her, it’s almost painful, showing just enough disregard for her comfort to make her feel certain that he indeed missed her. Her heart overflows with each rapid flutter, as she runs her nails over his scalp and down his back. It’s really him. He’s really here, or else her brain-damaged condition has somehow deteriorated to the point that she’s having vivid hallucinations. Too vivid. Too perfectly, exactly as she remembers it. Holding him, feeling how he’s locked around her, kneading against her with his hands.

She rubs her palms against his shoulders and back as well and down his arms, silently terrified he’ll dissipate like smoke.

He pulls back and gradually his hands find their way up her neck and onto her face, growing more gentle though no less desperate as he takes a hold of her jaw, thumbs skating across her cheek and finally climbing up over her forehead, where Dawn marked her. His eyes are wide, and still glassy with tears, his mouth parts slightly, though he can’t say anything.

Hands moving quick, he touches the tips of her lip sending a shiver down through her neck before he drops his fingers.

“You came home,” she whispers, pushing his hair back, so she can better see his eyes, drinking her in like he was a man in the desert.

As a captive breath leaves him, his whole body relaxes against her, he closes his eyes and presses his forehead into hers “Yeah. I’m home.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, way back when I still had confidence in the writers of this show and felt like I understood them, and I imagined Beth and Daryl reuniting at Grady, I was actually pretty sure it would be understated and subtle. It suited them at the time and it suited the situation, of course they took it to an unrealistic/retcon-esque degree, but whatever I’m only like really super bitter. However, this is a totally different situation. Finding each other unexpectedly? Him thinking she’s dead and her thinking she’s never going to see him again? Forget subtlety. Understated, my ass. There you go. That’s how I think it would go down. Hugs, tears, tied-up tongues, and tender but borderline invasively touching. Like, a lot. Probably more than they realize or mean to.
> 
> Photograph – Ed Sheeran


	7. A Place To Start

_What if the world just left us alone here._  He still can't string words together. Can't give voice to the millions of questions that he has, but doesn't care enough about yet.

Have I gone crazy?  _I'll take it._  How is this possible?  _Who cares._ Where has she been?  _She's here now._  Am I dead?  _Okay._

Daryl has questions but they are buried deep under awe. If left to his own devices he might just run his fingers over her face a few thousand times, feel every inch of her, never saying a word, just appreciating her every cell. He might never ask.

She's still crying, but they're happy tears, making the blue of her eyes shimmer in the golden daylight, trickling in through broken windows. She keeps opening her mouth like she wants to say something, but her stifled sobs and a touch of manic laughter is all that comes out. She hides her face in his shoulder and he gathers up her hair into the back of her head in his palms, the tip of his finger brushes a smooth patch of skin.  _Holy hell. The exit wound._  That's when he realizes one very concrete fact. It manages to break through the euphoria, adding to it, but also increasing the depth of what happened, compounding his relief with sorrow. She was never dead. He was mourning his lost girl for eight months. She was hurt, but healing.

And he left her in a trunk.

"That's  _fucking_  impossible."

Like the crack of a whip over his shoulder, Daryl whirls around, keeping a hold on Beth, arm secure under her arm and around her waist.

Aaron and Licari must've heard them, how could they not? Neither of them were exactly being quiet. Reverent maybe, but they were crying. She'd called out his name.

At the end of the hallway, Aaron and Licari stand with matching expressions of utter disbelief on their faces. It had been Licari who spoke, his jaw is level with his collarbone and the dagger in his hand is hanging limp.

Aaron is the first to get it together. His mouth gradually lifts into a smile as he seems to understand what's happening. "You're  _Beth_ , aren't you? You're… Maggie's sister," he steps in front of Licari who looks like he's a beat away from dropping dead on the spot.

"Maggie's alright?" Beth's voice comes out in a high tremor, and Daryl feels another wave of relief crash over him as she pulls tighter against him, fitting herself into the curve of his body. He can't believe it. What are his hands doing? He's got a handful of the back of her shirt, trying to press in close with each inhale, feeling the warmth of her, the ebb and flow of breath through her lungs and a faint, rapid heartbeat trembling through her. "I—I couldn't remember. I have trouble remembering things." She confesses rapidly.

Aaron meets Daryl's eyes, soft smile faltering for just a moment before he gives in to a grin. "I didn't want to give you false hope… but back when we were at the car, the seat was folded down, like someone climbed out of the trunk." He looked straight at Beth, "I'm Aaron. It's incredible to meet you, Beth Greene."

Daryl  _had_  noticed that the seat in the back was folded down like that, but couldn't reconcile it. He couldn't picture her climbing out of the trunk herself, not then. Now though, thinking back, it was what the evidence suggested. The car didn't look like it had been stripped and searched. The seat was just folded down, while the lid of the trunk remained locked.

"You went back—" Beth little voice is stifled by Licari.

" _We_ …" Licari says loudly, gesturing to himself and Daryl, "…saw what happened. We saw you die."

"You saw me get shot in the head," says Beth "Of course you thought I was dead."

"I just—I gotta  _see_  this," Licari shakes his head and starts to approach Beth.

Like someone just tugged the ripcord on his chest, Daryl immediately shoves himself between Licari and Beth, dagger drawn.

"Woah!" Licari raises both hands, his own weapon still limp.

"It's alright," Beth's soothing hand on his chest gives him pause, but only long enough to acknowledge a heat rising to his throat. He's got to make it very clear, very fast that Licari and everyone else had better watch their step around Beth. "It's alright," she says again, turning and using her delicate fingers to part her hair just enough so that they can all see the bald patch of skin on the back of her head.

The exit wound is so  _small_. For some reason he'd seen it bigger in his memories. Maybe that was just because it was so bloody when he put her in the trunk. There is about a quarter's size of bare scalp high up on the back of her head. The tiny white entrance wound near the top of her forehead is already faded, at about the same rate as the other marks. The faint white scars have the contradictory effect of ruining and perfecting her face, all at once. She's as beautiful as he remembered, and more besides. "It got my brain, but not real deep. Just scrapped it, I think." Her finger traces a line from the scar in her forehead back to the exit wound, trying to help them understand.

"You said you have trouble remembering things?" Aaron approaches now too, but that doesn't make Daryl nervous, just Licari's unblinking eyes, fixed in disbelief on her.

"I woke up in that trunk… at first, I didn't even remember about any of it. About… the world ending. About walkers. I was still sixteen and worried about… stupid things," she laughs, but it's still a wet laugh, and she has to swallow hard, gather herself a moment. She turns her head into Daryl's chest and he feels that same wave of perfect disbelief and joy warm all over him, as she sniffs. "It came back to me. It's still coming back to me. I'll probably never remember everything—but how would I know?"

"But—you remember what happened?" Aaron presses her, eyebrows knit in concern.

"I remember the hospital," her eyes narrow a touch as she throws a quick glance Licari's way and with a flash of new suspicion, Daryl wonders what she remembers about him. About any or all of their new crew.

"Trying to get out, with Noah," she adds quietly, "then I remember them bringing Carol in. She was hurt bad. I stole some epinephrine, because they didn't want to treat her. Then I heard that you were coming to get us. Dawn wouldn't let Noah go. Then it's not so clear—I know I got in Dawn's face and she shot me, but it doesn't really make sense."

"I gotta sit down," Licari strides right past them into the kitchen and tests the strength of one of the wooden chairs with a good kick before he sits down, "I gotta process this," his face falls into his hands.

"Why'd you go back to the trunk?" Beth asks Daryl quietly, but he can hear the unasked question there,  _'why did you leave me?'_  but she won't. Maybe she takes it for granted that sometimes, everything just goes wrong. She knows that. She had to leave her father's body. Both her boyfriends got left. Patricia and Otis got left behind too, and uneasily he wonders how much of those things she remembers.

"To get you," Daryl confesses. "I knew right where I left you. Wanted to lay you to rest properly. I remember you telling me once that it mattered."

The tiniest, sad smile tugs at the corner of her mouth. "Yeah. I remember that." Her brow dips closer to her wet eyes and her smile disappears like smoke, "I've looked everywhere. Where did you all go?"

"Virginia," Daryl speaks without thinking, for a moment, forgetting entirely about Licari and the rest of the folks in Grady.

"Richmond?" her eyes light up and Daryl's heart goes crashing down to shatter. She doesn't know about Noah.

"This place is in  _Virginia_?!" says Licari in disbelief.

Aaron nods in confirmation, doesn't seem bothered that they gave the secret away. It can't hurt too badly to just admit that they're headed to the state of Virginia. Especially since Beth just gave him a reason to think their final destination is about a hundred miles away from where it really is.

"Beth…" Daryl doesn't want to watch her joy at finding her people again fade when he gives her the bad news, but he knows that waiting any longer won't help. It's better to get it out quick.

"No wonder I couldn't find you," she laughs and a tear turns out of the corner of her eye, but she leaves it there. "I didn't even remember about Richmond. Noah said he still had family, but I didn't remember Virginia."

"Noah's gone, Beth," he'd never been very good at these things. The clouds in her eyes rolled over and he couldn't help but remember the last time he broke it to her that someone had died. He hadn't even really been able to say it properly, but she worked it out. Then she comforted  _him_.

"Oh," gradually, her gaze dips. "Oh."

"He was a good guy."

"He lived with us for a few months, but… he was on a run." That's all Aaron seems to be able to offer on the subject, he swallows, looking weary.

Licari looks up from his hands. "Noah's dead?"

Aaron nods.

"You failed to mention that."

"Did you find his family? Was he able to see them ag—" but she stops as she looks up at his face again, already able to discern that story as well. "Oh," she says again, defeated and quiet.

"Tyreese too. Right after Atlanta, before we met Aaron and the others."

It never really gets easier. Grief is always a heavy burden. One day your back just breaks, but he can see in Beth's eyes that she hasn't hit her limit yet, still, it's never easy. It's always the same angry uppercut right to the gut. The same silent plea for it to not be true.  _I'm so tired of losing people._

He wishes he could comfort her. He's always been terrible at that shit. She comforts herself, by comforting him. She grips his hand tight, saying sorry with that warm, pulse-laced touch of her fragile, yet impervious skin. It feels like not just for the loss of Noah and Tyreese, but for her own loss. Looking into her blue eyes he can see blossoming understanding there.  _Eight months thinking you were gone._  It's too soon to stop reveling, too soon to feel anything but the intensity of being in her presence once more, but far away, in the distance, a voice warns him:  _you won't be able to do it again, Dixon._ There's no way in all this hellscape he can lose her a third time.

He won't.

"You joined my people?" Beth glances briefly at Licari, seemingly cautious about this arrangement. She turns her gaze back to Daryl in a moment, questioning.

"That's a recent development," Aaron admits, "Alexandria needs a new Doctor."

"Rick killed the old one," Daryl adds in a grumble.

Beth raises her eyebrows, "Well. I'm sure he had a good reason."

"Had it comin'."

"But, everyone else?"

His heart hearts because there's so few names on this list. The prison meant the loss of so many of them, and after that, they kept falling. Some time, maybe it'll be alright to talk about what happened with Bob. He made it out too. "Sasha, your sister, Glenn, Michonne, Carol, Rick, Carl and Judith—"

"Judith!" She practically screams, hands over her mouth, those blue eyes are immediately swimming in tears, "Judith made it out?"

"Thanks to Tyreese and Carol. She's fine. Walkin' even," he smirks, the water in her eyes starts to spill out and she can't even speak. She folds back into his chest. A moment ago, he didn't even need to think about holding her, it just felt right, it was the  _only_  thing to do, upon seeing her again. Now, he recognizes this for what it is. It's like back at that shithole where they found the moonshine. When he could stand but not tall, collapsing inside himself. She'd come up behind him and been a pair of wings, keeping him from falling in on himself. He felt her melting against him and knew that it was his turn, all he needed to do was be her spine, as her legs got weak. It was a lot to take in.

He'd been wracked by so much sorrow he could barely function, Beth was experiencing something similar, except he could tell from the manic smile she immediately hid against his chest that it was joy that took her strength away. She shivered, nearly hysterical, as she struggled to breath in. He had to think about it now, had to think about where it was alright to put his hands on her, how hard to pull her in. She needed to breathe, but he could crush her if he didn't keep his emotions in check.

Clearly getting anxious in spite of himself, Licari draws up to his feet, "We shouldn't linger. Should get back."

He's right, but they all ignore him, at least for a few seconds, then Aaron turns and agrees silently with a jerk of his head towards the stairs. It falls into place, with a little bit of shock still coursing through their veins, they work together, stripping the house. Beth and Daryl don't even discuss it, she knows what the plan is. She's coming with them. That means leaving the farm. Forever, probably.

There's no rush, even her heartbeat has managed to slow down to a steady beat. Her breathing matches his own and he wonders if he did that unconsciously, or if it's just something that happens when you're listening to the air pull in and out of her, slow and steady and perfect, the tiniest whisper of  _alive_  over and over again with each draw.

Holding her like this, he's so aware of her body, and he wonders how he didn't pick up on that breath, that fluttering heartbeat, when he carried her  _heavy_ , down five flights of stairs. When a body gets hurt bad, it tends to shut everything off besides the bare minimum it needs to survive. She probably wasn't breathing much, probably wasn't doing much of anything, besides sleep and try not to drift too deep down into the dark. It probably didn't help that he was boiling with rage, while at the same time chilled deep in his bones, mourning for her, trembling with every fiber. Couldn't see, couldn't hear, could barely function for the shrieking sound of that gunshot in his head.

Even when she starts to drift away from him, pulling out a hidden stash from one of the kitchen cupboards, he can still feel her heartbeat running through him,  _thumpthump thumpthump_. His skin still burns where she caressed him. He stares at her as she glides around, gathering supplies, eyes threading their way back over to him every few minutes. Her face is wet from crying, her mouth still trembling. He watches her lips, a few twitches suggest that she's trying to speak, maybe having the same problem he is. Where do they  _start_?

"Is there anything else?" Aaron reappears, Licari lingering on the stairs, eyes darting between broken and intact windows, scanning the farm, but it's still just as isolated as before.

"I've got a lot more in my car. I'll follow?"

Aaron seems to anticipate what Daryl's thinking, but his tongue is a little quicker, "You ride with her, follow Licari and me back to the road."

* * *

_I was so close_. Beth realizes with a thrill as she begins to recognize the road just outside of the Grady camp. She followed that woman through the woods on the other side, approaching it from this angle she can't help but contrast it to the day before. She was alone, numb and stalking that woman, the same way she hunted animals. Now, she's part of a procession, her whole body feels light, she hadn't realized how heavy the burden of being alone rested on her, until it lifted. She hadn't realized how bad she missed Daryl Dixon, even. It hit her like an avalanche. It felt amazing.

During their drive together Daryl couldn't seem to look away from her, but he couldn't find words either. In an intense silence, they had followed Licari and Aaron to where Daryl's bike and Licari's car waited for them. Now, almost back at the camp, Daryl led the way, scouting out ahead of them on his bike to make sure the way was clear. Beth was right behind him, with Licari and then Aaron taking up the rear of their caravan.

She'd always imagined so many things that she would say to Daryl if she ever did find him again. Words poured out of her in the months she was alone, with no one to say those words to. Now that he was with her again, it all drifted away while she ran her fingers through his hair, took in the reality of him with a dizzy head.

Following Daryl, watching him lead her back with those stitched wings visible even at a distance, she tries to find the words again, but it's all jumbled.  _I know you looked for me. I know you lost me. It hurts. It hurt me too. We've lost so much time already._  She'd barely seen him again before she got shot, hadn't been able to say a word to him before it all went to absolute shit. Before that, they'd been together in that funeral home, but it was fuzzy. She remembers pig's feet and finely dressed corpses and the exciting prospect of a pet dog. She remembers singing to him, and feeling her cheeks burn as he watched her stroke the keys of the piano.

It's hot in Georgia. Even with the windows rolled down, she's feeling overwarm, head swimming still. It's not just coming back from the dead that's doing this to her. She felt like this before too. It's been awhile since she's been able to reconnect with any of her lost memories, but it seems to come more quickly through feelings; like this flush of warmth through her chest.

_There are still good people._

There are. They've found some. Aaron is evidence enough of that. She hopes that the folks from Grady have changed enough that they deserve to be called good people. Not only for her own safety, but for everyone. If what Daryl says is true, they'll stick around for a while.

_"_ _Maybe we stick 'round here for a while."_

Her cheeks burn, she can't get enough air, a tremor moves through her. "Oh," and she remembers.

_Well. That's a good place to start._

Daryl pulls off the road ahead and she follows him, Aaron and Licari continue on, choosing to stash their cars a little closer to camp. Beth doesn't mind a walk, it seems like Daryl is still airing on the side of caution. In case something goes wrong, they need a decent rendezvous point, a way to get out. Too close and you're not out. Too far and you'll never make it. A quarter-mile from camp feels about comfy, for contingency. Beth shuts off the engine, electing to leave her supplies in place for now and meets Daryl half-way.

They fall into step and into sync with each other instantly. They never did have to talk much, she would follow his lead when he knew what to do and he would follow hers when she did. They didn't struggle for control, except the one time she wanted booze and he wanted a little caution.  _I missed you so bad, while you were gone, Daryl Dixon._ "You think we can trust them?"

"…I dunno," he admits, a grimace marring his mouth. "Glenn made a good point, before I left, even if he was an ass about it." He scoffs, slowing down in his stride a little as they approach the road and she follows suit, staying off to the side, watching the parts of the woods that he hasn't got eyes on, before she looks back at him. "We've met some  _bad_  people, Beth. Worse than any before. Unfortunate as it is, the fact that the folks at the damn hospital never actually tried to eat us is a check in their favor."

They had a code. It was misguided, stupid even. To think you could force that level of control over people in a world now defined by chaos. But, they had rules that they tried to follow. It wasn't really the proper way to survive in this world, but it meant they were trying to preserve something from the old world. That was a good sign, Beth has to admit this to herself grudgingly, however. "But, you still believe there are good people left?"

Daryl stops dead in his trek a moment, then reaches down and takes Beth's hand, helping her up the last of the incline and onto the road. He doesn't let go right away, his fingers press into the top of her hand, running over her knuckles. "There are," he says firmly, "and you'll meet some of them. More of your own kind," he manages a smile.

"You used to think the good ones didn't survive." As she realizes what she's saying, her words get longer and heavier.

He released her hand, only to brush her hair back off her forehead, one knuckle gently ghosting over the tiny circular scar just below her hairline.

"What changed your mind?"

Those eyes capture hers long enough that she feels like he doesn't even need to say it, just like before, she knows what he means.

" _You_  did."

Moments before, she'd been thinking that she didn't need to hear it. It was enough to have him back again. To know in her heart that it was okay to have hope, that it had served them both. She was wrong. She needed to hear it, that much becomes clear to her as her throat constricts, as she watches him digging deep into her soul with his eyes.

He takes her face in his hands, gentle but steady, "You saved me. You're still saving me, just by bein' what you are."

"What am I?"

"A survivor. A good person." But then he starts to come over shy, she can see that confidence falling, he wants to say something, but he's going to stop himself, untying his tongue, he manages to keep going, but it still feels like he's holding something back, "Sometimes, seems like there ain't much difference between being alive and being dead anymore, 'cept for your people. I said we should stay there, back at that place, 'cause I knew you liked it. 'Cause whether we lived there or died there, I wanted to be with you."

She'd wondered, sometimes, if it was just some kind of intense side-effect of being so isolated. They had to rely on each other, had to be in each other's presence pretty much all the time. She had to trust him entirely and vice versa.

"That's what I was trying to say to you. I thought… for a minute, I wondered if we were the only two people left."

"Me too," she finally manages to say something, faced with so much honesty in his hushed voice, all she can think of is that he's  _changed_. She thought she'd seen a big change in him in just the time they were alone together after the prison was overrun. This though… it's like he kept climbing up that mountain.  _Have I changed this much?_

They're not strangers, but they're not exactly the same. There's something raw about him, and she wonders if he smells that on her as well.

"Yeah?" his eyes go soft against her.

"I thought maybe it was just us, in a world of walkers." Even if there were other people, what if they just never found them? What if they were all they had, forever? "I didn't even…" but she stops herself. She was going to say she didn't mind the thought, but that wouldn't quite be true. It wasn't so much that she didn't mind it, as it didn't feel like the end. Even if it was just the two of them, for the rest of their lives, they would be okay.

They would be happy. In spite of everything.

"I didn't hate the world," says Daryl slowly, "As long as you were still in it."

She nods, understanding what he means, but now she's the one who's gone all tongue-tied.

The sound of a car door slamming in the distance makes them both start. It's probably just Licari's truck, parked off the side of the road and down a ways. Jarred by the interruption, but not deterred, Daryl turns to face her, a hint of uncertainty in his demeanor. "C'mon, we gotta re-introduce you to the rest of them."

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> We're not done yet! I had originally planned to end this with the reunion at the farmhouse, but round about chapter two of the actual writing I decided it's going to go a little further than that, but still, this won't be a terribly long multi-chapter. Hope you guys enjoy it!
> 
> Also, I started a new fic, Anno Domini, which y'all should check out.
> 
> It is probably going to be long.
> 
> We Gotta Get Outta This Place – The Animals


	8. Smoke In The Distance

It had been maybe an hour since she'd found Daryl, but already it was hard to remember, hard to understand that person she'd become. Quiet and alone, she became what she had to in order to survive. It had been a life, but barely. Life was supposed to be about more than yourself, even after the world ended.

"Maybe I outta break it to them 'fore they actually see you," Daryl grumbles to her. He doesn't hold onto her as they walk, but stays so close it's tempting to reach out and wrap up his hand in her own.

"Seems like a lot's changed," Beth tries to keep the nervousness from her voice, "I watched them, from a distance. Only for a second or two, then I got spooked. You know 'em better now."

Daryl seems uncomfortable with that assessment of the situation, as they come near enough to the camp that they can actually see Doctor Edwards and Shepherd approaching the road. He slows way down.

Catching up to his side, Beth slips her hand into his for strength, feeling him return the pressure.

"Looks like Aaron and Licari are beatin' us to it," Daryl turns his back to camp, just as Beth catches sight of Aaron and Licari appearing from the edge of the road and meeting Edwards and Shepherd in camp. Daryl looks at her face with a steady, scrutinizing gaze. It doesn't make her feel appraised, but it leaves her wondering what he's searching for in her eyes, and if he's found it.

"Yeah?" she blinks at him, cheeks a little warm.

He replies with a mysterious shrug but doesn't look away from her, which makes her blush deepen and her smile widen.

Shepherd and Edwards approach at a fast jog now, Licari and Aaron both spare the scene a glance but ultimately head deeper into camp, Licari shouts out to the others to come and see.

Maybe it's because they're running, and even from twenty yards out she can see that their mouths are open and their eyes like saucers, but Beth finally feels like a sideshow. She folds herself as much behind Daryl as she can, hoping to keep this simple.  _Hey, yeah, didn't die. I remember y'all well 'nough to be nervous about traveling together, stay away from me._  There's got to be a way to establish all that without causing trouble, without turning herself into a spectacle. She doesn't want to sit there and have her finally  _healed_  wound prodded at and discussed by Doctor Edwards or anyone else. She doesn't really want to look at him, or talk to any of them, or be forced to remember her time at Grady. It was slavery, and they were fine with it. It's going to take a lot to get her to look past that.

Shepherd gets there first. "They're not lying," she calls backwards over her shoulder, and she manages to lock her jaw closed after swallowing whatever other expletives she had stored up. Her face is white. Beth remembers the least about her, out of all the Grady people. Shepherd struck her as a follower. She knew she couldn't lead and she was interested in following the strongest personality, not necessarily the best. She'd been open in her dislike of Dawn, but maintained friendly ties with O'Donnell and Gorman. Beth remembers killing O'Donnell and Gorman well.

Edwards she knew best, and came to despise as much as Dawn, though she'd never wished him dead outright, like some of the others. He was a weak, cowardly person who treated everyone around him like they were weak and cowardly. Overcompensation, she eventually realized. There's open shame on his face as he meets Beth's eyes. "I—I couldn't get near you, I didn't see…" his face is even more colorless than Shepherd, and his feet are uneven beneath him, like he might topple off-kilter and faint from the shock.

Perhaps anticipating as much, Shepherd moves in to his side. Beth realizes that personally, she would've just let him fall.

"Is that…?" he has to take two deep breaths before he can complete the question. He walks up as close as he dares, which is still a good six feet off, with Beth's steely gaze and Daryl's heavy shoulder blocking his direct route to her face. One hand gently rises and he gestures towards her forehead, "…where the bullet struck?"

Beth permits him a tight nod, still not tearing her eyes away from his face.

"I saw the spray. I thought… from the way you were standing I was sure the bullet entered under your chin." Edwards actually leans on Shepherd for support.

"I'm fine," Beth says curtly. "I'm alive. That's all."

Edwards subtly shakes his head in denial, but doesn't say anything.  _That's not all,_  she can see it in his eyes. They've got unfinished business and she knows it, but the man looks good and terrified for now. Perfect.

"You've got a patient right now?" Beth finally tears her fierce gaze away and flickers her eyes towards the camp, "A woman some of your people found in the woods, injured and alone?"

Edwards looks like he didn't hear her, like he's still just concentrating on breathing, but Shepherd's eyes go wider still and she nods, "Yeah, Licari, Tanaka and Franco found her, how did you—?"

"I'm what she was running from." Beth admits, "I was tracking her for a while, trying to decide if I could trust her. She got pinned down by some walkers and I tried to help, but spooked her, drove her right into you."

"She hasn't really said anything," Shepherd frowns in the direction of the camp, "just that her name is Lily, and that she was alone. I think she's been alone for a long time."

"Is she alright to travel?"

"She just needs plenty of water. I'll be sitting next to her in the car, making sure she's stable." Edward confirmed.

Just like that Beth decides there's nothing more to say to them right now. If she tried it would only be chilled references to their treatment of her and the other orderlies back when she was a prisoner-slave at Grady.

Daryl starts to lead her into the heart of the camp where the others wait. It's clear that they are pulling up stakes at breakneck speed. Loading up their vehicles and preparing to ship out. She wonders if they are running from anything in particular, or if it's just the ever-mounting uncertainty of their situation. Staying in the same spot for too long invites trouble.

Being back with these people and their gawks makes her heart ache for her real family. She's got Daryl, and in some ways that's enough, more than enough even. She's reconnected with a feeling a peace that came over her when she first found herself alone with him and the dead, after her daddy died; she could live like this. She could be the last woman on earth, with Daryl Dixon as the last man on earth, and life would still be worth living. He was enough.

But that isn't the world she lives in. He told her as much. Judith, Rick, Glenn, Maggie, Carl, Carol, Michonne—all still alive and that makes the present company all the more bitter. Shepherd, Edwards, Licari, Tanaka, Franco and this practically mute Lily woman are a poor substitute for  _her_  people.

She looks at Daryl, his face so full of that wild energy that's always coursing through him, while still he looks placid and in control.  _Let's run. Let's run all the way home._  Her heart feels a thrill as she thinks of it and always she tries to construct a way to ask him.  _Can't we just go ahead? Can't we just tell them to meet us down the road? I wanna be with my family._

But the moment she thinks it through, she knows it's not an option. The last time Daryl asked  _her_  to meet him down the road, it didn't work out so well. Besides that, she can already tell that this Aaron guy is something akin to a new brother in their clan, at least as far as Daryl is concerned. They  _need_  to recruit these people and even if she doesn't understand why yet, she can feel it's important, otherwise Daryl would just take her away. They can't leave Aaron, and the three of them can't leave this group. They need them.  _But why?_  Why come all the way to Georgia for a Doctor? Just in case? It's good to be prepared and all, but it's hundreds of miles. Seems like if it was a 'just in case' kind of situation a decent argument could be made for recruiting closer to home and keeping a specific eye out for people with medical training. She's sure that Rick wouldn't feel alright about sending Daryl so far away on a whim, the risk of losing him was too great.

Now that the initial shock and ecstasy of finding Daryl has crashed over her like a wave, she's able to start asking some practical questions. It scares her, not knowing everything that's going on. After so many months of being in charge of herself, turning over control to others was never going to be easy, but she trusts Daryl and every time her heart starts to thump a little heavy, thinking about the long road ahead, she looks to him and feels calm.

"We're changing our plans." Aaron makes a beeline towards them the second they cross the threshold into camp. He has to maneuver around Franco and Tanaka to get to them, but his eyes pull their collective attention forward, "I know you're only running on about four hours of sleep in the last few days as it is, but instead of leaving tomorrow, I think we should clear out now."

Daryl is already nodding, like Beth, he must be anxious to get back, more so, now that they're bringing her with them. "I'm fine. Wide awake. We could get in a good leg of the journey into the night, stop for a couple of hours before dawn to recharge and finish the road in the morning—as long as we've got enough fuel." It's an overly optimistic plan. A plan that might have run into problems  _before_  the world ended, when the roads were safer and finding fuel wasn't a problem as long as you had a credit card.

Still, Aaron and Daryl don't seem to mind reaching for the stars. If they try to make the journey in two days, maybe they can manage it in twice that length of time instead, and that won't be too bad. "We should have enough," Aaron cocks his head towards a few tanks of gasoline being loaded by Licari into the bed of a big yellow Chevy. "They've got some stores of their own, so it shouldn't eat too much into what we brought."

Beth was already planning to stash her car. Not outright ditch it. There was always some possibility she'd find her way back in this direction again one day. Chances were, the car would be found by someone else at that point, or else it would have been still too long to bring to life without major repairs, but all the same, it had served her well when she walked the earth alone, and it didn't feel like she was dumping it, so much as parking it.

Within an hour they'd moved her supplies into Aaron's car, and the Grady folks had finished staring at her eerily and managed to pack up the rest of their camp. The caravan was set to ride out, with Daryl at the head on his bike, and Beth as close as she could get, pressed right into his back, over those stitched angel's wings on dark leather.

* * *

The first obstacle hits them with the smell of smoke around one in the morning. They're past Atlanta, almost to the state border, when the light from up ahead flickers and they recognize the twists of grey blocking out the stars.

"Forest fire," Daryl guesses at a shout and she tightens her grip around his waist. "Raise one fist in the air until Aaron puts on his breaks!"

Beth follows his instructions, and it only takes a few seconds for the red brake lights to illuminate behind Aaron's car. The entire caravan slows at this signal, but Daryl accelerates. At the crest of a hill they are able to get a fuller picture. The fire is bad, but it looks like it's already been going for a while, starting to burn itself out. The air is thick with black smoke, so that the road is obscured ahead. In the dark, they can still see flickering towers of flames spread out.

"Do you think it'll be done by morning?" Beth wonders, not excited about trying to ride through that.

"It's been dry and there's a wind carrying it north, can't see how much wood is left, but it won't stop until its eaten everything." He turns the bike around and Beth finishes the thought for him. This could delay them, could even compel them to take a different route. Depending on how dense the affected region is, it might be more trouble than it's worth to take this road, and it might have spread far enough that divergent routes will take them a good distance out of their way. They won't be able to make a decision until the morning.

Returning to where they met the caravan, Beth's eyes are still watering from the smoke, it's still thick in her nose, but they're far enough away now that she can take in a few deep lungfuls of clean air.

"Can't see nothin'," Daryl grumbles to Aaron, "We can check it out at dawn, but we may have just lost some serious time and fuel," he adds grimly.

Glancing back at the cars at their back, Aaron grimaces, "I'll tell them we're calling it for the night—and I've got first watch," he adds quickly, "You get some sleep."

Daryl raises his chin like he might argue with him, but Aaron doesn't let him utter a single syllable before he turns to march back to their potential recruits.

Making her way over to Aaron's car, Beth digs into his trunk, not to retrieve anything but just to look at her guns, ammunition and fuel and feel a little bit of reassurance that it's all still at their disposal. Her heart is fluttering fast, her head still a little dizzy from the smoke and her skin tingling from hours on the back of the bike with the wind whipping past.

Shuffling up behind her, Daryl stands at the first awkward distance she's seen him own since her return. After they spent the whole evening with her up in his personal space, it's strange to see him suddenly standing off, looking at her sideways, the way he used to when he was nervous about something. It's a bizarre enough sight that she just stands there watching him for a moment, hands gripping the lip of the trunk. From the bottoms of his muddy boots, up his patched trousers, holstered belt, flannel shirt, motorcycle leathers there's all tense muscle hiding underneath. His face isn't placid anymore, there's a little grey dust from the smoke and Beth realizes that she must mirror him on that front. She hadn't realized they got close enough to the fire to have ash on their skin.

"Y'okay Dixon?" She drags her eyes over him again, taking in his clenched fists and 'at-attention' demeanor, like he's waiting for someone, maybe her, to tell him what to do.

His response is latent, his hundred-yard gaze digs into her an extra few seconds before he gives a little nod, curling his lips in between his teeth. "Yeah, better'n okay." His mouth twitches into one of those rare smiles and she's hoping now she can get one out of him every day.

"You gonna sleep in Aaron's car 'til he needs you on watch?" she guesses that's why he ambled over into this area before he saw her and went stone-still.

He raises his shoulders but forgets to lower them, his hands finding their ways into his pockets.

"C'mon, let's both get a few hours," she turns back to the truck, deciding to fold down the seat. It's probably safer cuddled right up to some of their guns, although she would feel safe enough just staying tight against him.

Although it's far from the first time that Beth and Daryl spent the night in tight quarters, Beth finds her hands shaking as she shuts the doors and the trunk, finally sealing them inside the quiet car. A nervous giggle actually escapes from her lips as she finds a place for herself between Daryl's chest and a hefty fisherman's box that she filled with .9mm bullets. "Is my hair in your face?"

He doesn't answer, but she can hear him shuffling around, trying to carve out his own place, finally she feels him rest against her from behind, the comforting sensation of his chest expanding against her shoulders makes her relax even deeper into him, until she can feel him all along the length of her body. If anything her head must be encroaching even more on his face. "Is—is my hair in your face?" she asks again, wondering if maybe he didn't hear her the first time.

Tentative at first, she feels a light touch on her shoulder, the weight increases slowly until she can tell it's his hand, just barely curling over the muscle connecting her shoulder and her neck. The tips of his fingers brush her collarbone, his thumb ghosts against her neck and a ripple courses its way over her skin. She crosses her own hand across her chest and takes a hold of his fingers lightly.

"I like your hair in my face," Daryl finally replies.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> THAT WAS SUCH A LONG WAIT I'M SO SORRY :(
> 
> Compass - Zella Day


	9. Both

Waking up is like climbing out of a dark cave. Beth hasn't slept this deep in a long time. Before she can open her eyes or move she feels how the position of her body has shifted, she's on her back, more spread out then when she first drifted off, with Daryl pressed up tight against her back. She'd taken it for granted that she would wake up when he had to leave. Looking around the turned down seat of Aaron's packed car, it's hard to envision how he managed to so gently and quietly slip out without waking her. She'd wanted to stay on watch with him, but he let her sleep.

Beth isn't alone in the car, however.

Aaron's boots are up on the dash, the front passenger-side seat is let back all the way so his head floats about a foot above hers. He looks serene in sleep, except that his hands are white-knuckled around his rifle, the barrel poised towards the filthy windshield.

A few items crunch around Beth as she tries to find a quick escape from the car. Aaron tenses up at the sound and his eyes snap open. Beth freezes in place, not wanting to alarm him with any quick movements while he's still coming out of it. His eyes flicker over to her and his chest sinks as he releases a breath.

"Is it dawn?" he looks in confusion out the windows at the strange grayish pink air.

"I think so," Beth checks that her knife and gun are still where she put them. Meager sunlight fights its way through the smoke. Since Aaron is awake she's less careful getting to the door and climbing out. She coughs immediately. The smoke isn't thick enough to be very dangerous, but it's worse than it was last night when they stopped. She fishes through her coat pocket for a handkerchief and ties it over her mouth and nose, hoping it will help a little.

Aaron is right behind her. In the distance they can see a small crowd where the smoke is thinnest. At a quick jog it only takes thirty seconds to reach them. Tanaka meets them part-way, and he's wearing a bandana over his mouth as well. "Daryl took his bike and rode out ahead of it, clearing the way."

"He's riding through  _that_?" Beth feels a drop in her stomach as she motions towards the thick veil of still-black smoke rising up ahead of them.

"I gave him an oxygen tank and a mask," Edwards speaks up quickly, through a white surgical mask. He's already holding his hands up as if he thinks he's got to soothe her. "Just in case," he adds.

"If it's blocked, what do we do?" Shepherd is looking at Aaron now who's gone pale.

"Unfortunately, the roads north have taken a beating in the last few years," Aaron says grimly, "between flooding, forest fires, herds and the rest, we've really only got a few solid options left and they're a bit… out of the way," his eyes flicker around the group. But he doesn't look nervous, he doesn't want the spare them; he's genuinely not panicked yet, so they shouldn't be either.

At the moment, Beth couldn't care less about potentially wasting fuel. They sent Daryl _alone_  into that? Even as her anger mounts, she's certain he volunteered for it. Maybe he even came up with a good reason why it made sense, but she turns her back on them and has to walk a few feet away to keep from biting anyone's head off. Her nails dig into her hips.

She tries to level her breathing out while she tunes out the others' talk. She can feel her heart beating quick in her chest. Being alone with them is making her panic. Can't even take a deep breath because of the smoke still lingering in the air.  _Let's just go after him, let's drive through it._ She swallows, bouncing on her toes. It used to be like this right after they left the farm. She would think of something and wouldn't speak up, not until she knew them better, not until they were family, and honestly, not until she had enough confidence in herself and in her desire to survive.

When she opens her eyes after a moment of sparing them from the smoke, they fall on the beat-up green Subaru that Edwards and his patient rode in with Tanaka and Shepherd.

Lily didn't step out to join the group with the others, she's sitting upright but sideways in the back seat, legs dangling out the open door. It takes Beth a beat to be sure that it's her. The last time she saw her she was so covered in mud and walker filth that it was impossible to discern much about her appearance. Now, Beth can see that she's a petite woman with a sad, but pretty face, pale green eyes and brunette hair that's half-matted against her skull. She's clutching both hands together and they're stuffed with something dark in one fist and something shimmering and sharp in the other.

Lily's eyes are fixed on Beth in a stare that at first appears predatory, until Beth drifts closer, then she can see that it's just the opposite. Lily's face is the still, overwrought mask of a small rodent hoping that a larger predator hasn't seen them. Beth slows her walk, pulls the bandana from her face and tries to smile, but can't do it.

Closer now, Beth can see that the matted bits of Lily's hair are too bad to salvage and she's trying to cut it, to get rid of the worst clusters. Clutched in one hand is a pair of scissors, and in the other is a few clumps of hair that she managed to sheer away from her scalp.

"Want some help?" Beth asks, reaching out towards the scissors.

On her own, Lily managed to get rid of the hair that would have been hanging over her eyes and ears. She looks Beth over once before she nods stiffly and hands over the scissors with unsteady hands.

Mud, blood, pus, shit and other substances that Beth can't identify seem to have fused with Lily's locks. There's no way to save any of it, but Lily doesn't seem the slightest bit bothered as Beth is compelled to crudely chop away at the roots of each mat. They cleaned her up. The smell of isopropyl alcohol is still strong on the back of her neck. She's got a few smaller cuts, but it's clear that Edwards saw these and treated them, as they are slick with bacitracin.

"Why'd you follow me?"

Beth takes a long time to answer, fully aware that it's creepy to silently continue to chop a person's hair off after they've just asked a perfectly reasonable question, but she can't think of any response that isn't potentially more alarming.  _I was lonely. I thought you were a walker at first. What else was I supposed to do with my apocalypse?_  "I dunno," she finally sighs out an answer, "A lot of reasons, but honestly… I figured out a long time ago that sometimes, to keep going in this world, you just gotta have  _something_  you're trying to do. Even if you don't know why it's important."

"Why?" Lily almost turns her head to look at Beth but stiffens at the last second, able to feel the girl still working on the back of her head.

"Purpose," Beth says vaguely.

Lily doesn't seem to have anything to relate to about that.

"What did you do before?"

It takes Lily a long time to answer and when she finally does it's with a tight voice, "I was a nurse. I took care of my dad. My sister… my daughter. I was a mom."

 _Was_. It's always  _was_. Beth takes a good long time to respond again. Maybe having a purpose wouldn't help Lily the way it did Beth. "If you've got medical training, you've got one hell of a purpose, I'd say," she says quietly, "I'll level with you, Lily, I have trouble believing that Alexandria is everything they say."  _Probably less trouble than a lot of people since I had a home. A nice stable prison where people were good._  "…But if there's any chance that it's real, we gotta go. If there's any way to get back a piece of what we lost, that's gotta be our purpose. To find it."  _Better than wandering the woods._

Lily still looks grim, but with her dead and dirty hair cut away she's looking a little brighter, a little less weighed down. It's all Beth can do.

"What about you? Before this," Lily struggles with the question, brow furrowed, she can probably guess that Beth's young enough not to have had much of an adulthood before the world ended.

"I had my family, and a home. A farm."

"Is it all gone?" There's no caution in Lily's voice, she already knows the answer will be horrible.

"I've got a…" her throat feels tight and she can't push out the word  _sister_. "Maggie," she murmurs.

"That's good," but Lily's voice sounds toneless. "You've still got someone."

Beth just nods, not wanting to get into the part where she has to be honest. Seeing her sister again might just smash her heart in two, for so many reasons. On too many levels, it will be crushing. In her mind's eye she keeps seeing that faded message.

GLENN GO TO TERMINUS

MAGGIE

"She gave up on me," Beth doesn't mean to say it, the words just happen inside her mouth and now she can't look up at Lily.

They let the silence the wafting smoke drape around them. It's not a comfortable feeling, but neither of them moves to shut the door or opens their mouths to speak.

"I don't even know what happened to my sister. I lost sight of her. I was swarmed. I had to run or die. I couldn't find her after." She rubs at her shorn head, brushing a few stray hairs off her shoulders. Beth beats lightly at her back to dust her off.

Through the smoke, Aaron is approaching. "We've decided to try and push through—we'll either not be able to go much further, or we'll meet Daryl on the way back and get his assessment of the situation."

Beth nods, a heavy sigh of relief empties her lungs. The direction that Daryl went is the direction she wants to go.

"You want to ride with me?" Aaron asks and she's surprised by how uncertain he looks. He's good at reading people, but for whatever reason he doesn't seem to have picked up on the fact that Beth doesn't trust these people yet.

She maneuvers her way out from behind Lily and follows Aaron back to his car, bringing the seat back up and buckling herself into the passenger's side.

"What do you think of them?" Aaron asks as the road gets thicker with smoke. He's out front leading this time, the small caravan behind them stays close. "I usually don't invite people back, until I'm sure of who they are. Glenn seems to think there's hope for them. Daryl was wary, but didn't really protest. If there's a problem, I can count on Daryl to point it out?"

Beth's mouth is a tight line against her teeth as she chooses her words carefully. "Glenn never met them. He doesn't know shit. Daryl knows them a little better… He would." She lets the air out through her teeth slowly, choosing her words carefully.

"I understand why you don't trust them. I don't either." Aaron's eyes move sideways to take in a skewed view of her in the passenger seat beside him, "I thought you might want to watch them, get a better assessment."

"I spent enough time with them before, if that wasn't who they are at their worst then we can go ahead and ditch them now." Even now, she finds her eyes peeling through the smoke, looking down the side-roads and dirt paths wide enough for their car, wondering if maybe they should just leave. Maybe Daryl was forced to divert.

"What was it like?" Aaron swallows, and almost as immediately as the question leaves his lips he pales and stutters out, "You don't have to tell me that. I'm sorry."

She considers letting that hang there, just staring at the window, continuing to search through the corridors of smoke for some sign of Daryl, but she catches a glimpse of herself in the mirror: a hard reflection, harder than either of her parents or siblings ever looked. The scars have all gone white and thin, but they still section off her face into smooth planes _. I used to be pretty._  It's a sad thought, but for whatever reason it almost makes her smile. She likes this new face, even if it's banged up and hard.

This girl is a new creature, died and reborn among monsters. The flyaway wisps of blonde hair dance around that immobile face. As she comes to look at her. She meets her own eyes and even she's shocked by the ice in that stare. "There are some things about the world now… that aren't so bad."

Aaron's brow furrows but he doesn't try and argue with her, though it's clear his knee-jerk reaction is disbelief. He waits, willing to hear her out.

"I mean, it's terrible," Beth shrugs. "Really ugly world. But in some ways, I feel awake. I don't know. Maybe that's just because I was still such a kid when it all happened. Maybe I'd feel like that now regardless. I just keep thinking that, as bad as things are, it could be like a blank slate." For some reason she recalls that moment Daryl rode up to the farmhouse on his motorcycle. That first moment she saw him, under the full sun, and it brings to mind seeing him again, for the first time, just the day before. "A chance to start over, and leave some of the old ugliness behind."

Aaron's forehead relaxes and after a moment's contemplation he nods, "I think I understand what you mean," and it doesn't just sound like lip-service.

"When I was at Grady… it was like they'd only thrown out the parts of the world that were worth saving. They wanted to keep all the bad stuff, instead. It was such a waste," she scoffs, stifles an un-amused laugh. It's  _not_ funny. Not even a little, but there's something vicious creeping in her mind. The thought that it couldn't all have just come from Dawn. She wasn't the only problem. "They kept slavery, and fear, and excess, and rape, and created a little, broken society that was all about having power by keeping the people around you weak. That's what it was like." Beth finds herself looking down at her hands, as rough and as scarred as her face.

"…That's not what I see now," Aaron says quietly, eyes flickering to the rearview to take in the caravan behind them. "Maybe they've changed?"

"Maybe." Beth agrees tonelessly, but she knows it's possible. People  _can_  change, whatever cynics say. More importantly, people always  _do_  change, whether they mean to or not, whether they want to or not.

It's just that they don't always change into something better. "They seem different. They seem better. But they were a long way from okay, last I knew them. Maybe they've still got too far to go."

"Maybe," Aaron agrees, echoing her same tone with a purposeful smile. He slows down a little as the smoke gets a little thicker. They can still see about thirty meters out. There's no sign of Daryl. "Thank you. For telling me all that." He adds. "I think I understand much better now."

"Them, or me?" Beth turns to look at him.

"Both." He doesn't look back at her this time.

The car continues to roll through the smoke and even as Aaron decreases the speed, the caravan follows their lead and stays back a healthy distance. Even though the smoke is getting thick, none of them put their lights on, perhaps hoping to preserve the batteries.

"Would you tell me honestly? How is everyone. Maggie and Glenn. Carol. Rick. Carl, Michonne, the baby, Sasha?"

"You'll be able to see for yourself, soon enough," says Aaron, and though he lifts his chin a little, his voice stays even, like he knows this isn't a lighter topic of conversation at all, as tempting as it might be to treat it as such. "They're healthy. They're safe behind walls. They scare everyone," now he lets the mood lighten a little, a smile blossoming on his face.

"I'm afraid…" but she bites her lip, not sure how much she wants to get into it right now. Not sure she really wants to talk about it.  _I want to be happy when I see Maggie again._  I don't want to scream at her. "It's just so strange, to think I'm going to see them again, after all." Almost, she thinks maybe it's still out of her reach. Something will happen to stop her. On some level, wouldn't that be simpler?

"I'm trying to figure out how we should bring it up, actually. I imagine bringing you back from the dead could be… dramatic." He finally settles on the softest word he seems to be able to find, a blush in his cheeks.

"Could you tell them?" For some reason, picturing it in her mind she can't feel her legs, can't envision herself being able to stay upright without Daryl to hold onto.

As if he already gets it, Aaron answers, "Sure," without hesitation.

"They might not believe you."

"Probably not."

Daryl didn't believe it, not even when he was looking right at her. She saw it in his eyes, for a few seconds at least, he thought he was looking at a ghost or an hallucination or a dream. "…How is he?" she asks the question quietly, not realizing right away that she didn't even say his name, but it doesn't matter, Aaron knows she means Daryl, maybe just because who else, or maybe it helped that he glanced over at where her hands balled up into her shirt.

"Better than I've ever seen him," says Aaron with an air of earnestness that knots up her throat. "I met him, right after you were shot. It's night and day. About how I would expect someone to feel if they woke up and found out the entire apocalypse was just a nightmare." Aaron doesn't exaggerate, she hasn't gotten that vibe from him at all. "He's always been strong and reliable, since I've known him, but… deeply wounded. Emotionally crippled, even. Now though. It's like he's able to walk again."

The smoke is thinning out again, the wood and the long stretch of road ahead reappears between the columns of smoke, traveling skyward in escape. Far in the distance, a dark figure rolls towards them.

"There he is," says Aaron and she can hear the relief in his voice, matching her own thudding heart. He's alright, he's turned around and coming back.

Aaron slows the car to a stop right in front of Daryl's bike as it comes to a halt. As soon as he puts his feet on the ground on either side of the bike, Daryl lifts the handkerchief around his mouth and pulls the oxygen mask from his saddlebag, taking a few deep breaths.

There's no real reason for her to do it, but as the smoke seems much thinner, Beth jumps out of the car and sprints towards the bike. Aaron just lets her go.

"Hey," Daryl pulls the oxygen mask away a moment and calls out, a little breathless. The upper-half of his face, which wasn't protected by the handkerchief is grimy with black soot from the smoke, "The worst of it's over, it's clear another mile ahead of here, I say we just power through now that it's—"

Beth slows her sprint when she's barely six feet away, and finally comes to a complete stop with either hand fixed against his shoulders, he drops the mask and catches her around the waist, looking a little surprised to suddenly have her so close.

Her fingers curl into the leather on his shoulders and slid down his back a little as she brings her face in close to his, but whatever nervousness she feels fails to win out as his palms press into the small of her back, maybe just on reflex. The warmth of his skin makes her cheeks and her lips tremble a moment before she simply presses her lips against his, and quickly pulls back.

The look on his face is trembling surprise, that he doesn't bother to hide as he curls his lips into his teeth.

She can still feel the warmth of him on her mouth, the tingling where his facial hair brushed against her face. She wants to kiss him again before the taste fades, but it's clear from his wide-eyed, ruddy face, that one more might just do him in. "Haven't I done that before?" her stomach drops as she realizes, she hadn't meant to take such a liberty with a first kiss. Her mind was still having trouble piecing it all together, but she felt certain, somewhere deep inside, that she must've kissed before. She knows they weren't together. But they were. Weren't they?

It couldn't all be fantasy. It couldn't just be her mind constructing pleasant memories from what she wanted. Could it?

"Nah," he admits in a murmur, he clears his throat. "No, y'aint done that before."

"Oh," but she  _can_  remember it, she remembers that scent and that taste, remembers his hands exploring in earnest. She remembers his mouth and what it felt like. But in looking at the caution in his eyes, and in thinking over the intensity of what she just, truly, inarguably experienced, as innocent and chaste as it was, she realizes that it was only her bullet-blasted mind. "Well. I meant to, once or twice," heat rises to her cheeks as well. Oh yeah. She'd definitely thought about it before.

Daryl still seems unable to function, like she drugged him, rather than just gave him a simple, sweet peck on the lips.

The caravan is hanging out behind them, the smoke is starting to make her eyes water. She takes her position behind him and swings her legs over, only having to take the most conservative puff from the oxygen tank as they barrel out of the last mile of smoke before the forest clears into a road leading home.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So…. Begging your collective forgiveness… I have no way to defend myself, I'm just really sorry for the wait and I hope the next gap between chapters will be a more reasonable length. I'm still working on both my fics though:) No plans to abandon either of them any time soon. In fact, this one is approaching the end, as you might have been able to guess.
> 
> I had thought for a moment that I might want to overhaul some things to take S6 canon into account… but so far S6 isn't really blowing up my skirt, you know?
> 
> I'm not even changing Rosita to Denise, this is just straight-up canon divergent and I regret nothing.
> 
> Road Salt - Pain of Salvation


	10. Chapter X – Damn ridiculous time to be trigger-shy

_“…I meant to, once or twice,”_  remembering that nervous giggle in her voice, Daryl inadvertently speeds up a little faster than he meant to as he takes them up over a clear hill on his bike.

Beth’s arms tighten around his waist.

_Shit, when?!_  He can hear his heartbeat inside his brain, his face feels warm. He knows he’s gotta stay focused or else he risks crashing, or missing some clear sign of danger up ahead, but she really just sent his head spinning. She kissed him. Like it was the only thing to do, she’d just pressed her mouth up against his so he could taste her, feel her trembling slightly as she steadied herself, gripping his arm.

And what did he do?!

Stand there like an idiot, he was pretty sure.

Couldn’t actually remember.

Nothing besides her warm lips, and that little shake and the strong, steady way her fingers pressed into his skin.

When did she mean to kiss him in the past? When could that have come up?

He remembered moments when he wanted to kiss her, wanted to hold onto her, not quite the way that she held onto him. The few times they’d embraced it felt like she was keeping the piecing of him together while he tried to fall apart. He didn’t want to wrap her in his arms because he was worried she might sink into the ground, the way he almost had. It was worse than that, it was harder to explain. He wanted to feel what she was feeling, wanted her pulse running over his skin. He wanted to let her into his lungs, get the smell of her stuck to him.

He made her laugh sometimes, usually, without meaning too. He thought back on times when he made her laugh and wondered if Beth had ever thought about kissing him in one of those disarmed moments, when in the midst of death, she looked up at him with those bright blue eyes and smiled. She always blushed, just the tiniest bit, when she was trying not to laugh too loudly, trying not to be heard by any live or dead predator.

So many times, they’d found themselves holed up close together. There was the night they folded inside that trunk to wait out a parade of walkers that lasted through the night. He doubted she wanted to kiss him then. They were both tense with fear, tangled up together in the hot, confined space.

Beth looked at his lips, he looked at hers, but the storm kept pulling them away. Probably not then. But maybe. Fear makes you want, sometimes.

There was that night they burned down the moonshine still together. They were both lit and she was saying some words and looking at him real steady, like she could see all the shifting, broken parts of him in orbit around his soul. He didn’t quite know how to explain what it felt like, stuck under her gaze. He’d suggested they go back inside the shack and she had this look on her face like there was mischief in her plan.  _“We should burn it down.”_

It was like they had to do something. Had to make a stand against the injustice of the world. There was a later moment too, as they walked into the night and he observed that determined way her eyes took in the night and took him in too. Had she wanted him then?

Dozens of times came to his mind, when they were holed up close together, when he was trying to teach her some trick of a tracker, or even when they struggled together. He remembered when she was caught in that bear trap, messed up her ankle. There was a split second as he helped her to her feet where she started to speak, only to get real quiet. At the time, he thought maybe it was just the pain.

Was that one of those moments?

She wanted to.

But she didn’t.

If he was being honest with himself, from that moment, until she was gone was hard for him, because he felt that urge to be so close and couldn’t quite let it happen. Nothing made him happier than the idea of surrendering to Beth Greene. Daryl Dixon wasn’t good at being happy; he didn’t have enough experience with it.

The thought gives him pause as the miles race by. This is another chance at what he almost let himself have back in that funeral home. A chance to live for real, and not just survive.

_Don’t get all carried away, Dixon. S’just a kiss._

Even that’s a lie though. It’s more than that and they both know it, but that makes it feel so real and dammit he’s shaking. He’s trembling at the thought that this girl ever wanted to kiss him, that she would act on it is another thing entirely.

And it wasn’t even the first time she wanted to do it, just the first time she didn’t hesitate. What made her hesitate before?

For that matter, what made him hesitate?

The world ended. Seems like a damn ridiculous time to be trigger-shy.

_“What changed your mind?”_

They finally got the chance to finish that conversation they’d started, but everything was so different now, so heavy on both their shoulders. Not to mention, so much time had passed, it was like he could feel that they were both still getting their bearings. In that kitchen at the funeral home, there’d been no need for that. They were both unguarded and feeling safer than they ever had. That was probably what went wrong.

Too vulnerable.

He wasn’t going to let something like that happen again, but with the added shielding came a sense that the time would never quite be that perfect again.

If he hadn’t gone to the door. Or, if he’d checked the window first and seen what was lurking out there, and they just holed up for the night until the herd passed them by again. If they’d been able to talk that night like he’d finally decided they should, what had ever been his plan?

Hell. It was so far back, he wasn’t even sure he had one.

_“What changed your mind?”_

And she had that look on her face like she was only reading the first few lines in his mind, but she could already tell where it was going.

_You changed my mind…_

_…I love you, Beth._

_“Oh.”_

It terrified him, because it was new and it was fragile and because at this point he hadn’t even imagined that she might be making sidelong glances at his lips and  _meaning_  to kiss him, once or twice. Some part of him thought that maybe, he might have a chance. What with them already well and truly acquainted with everything there was to know about the other. And him constantly getting better at making her smile.

There was also being the last man on earth, and all.

He was under no illusions that it was the kind of story a girl like that deserved or wanted.  It was probably the only way that Daryl Dixon would ever see his life turn into a damn romance novel for any stretch, but for Beth Greene? Poor woman was slumming it. He knew it. He knew she had to know it.

And he never would have blamed her for rejecting him outright. On at least a few different levels, he expected it. He was going to hear her out, had even prepared himself to hear it a few different ways:  _“You’re like family to me Daryl. I just don’t feel that way about you.”_  Yeah. She’d probably say something like that, because she’s a real nice girl and saying the truth would be too harsh for her. She wouldn’t tell him that he was too much a killer, too old, too ugly in every sense of the word, too beaten and busted up from too many wasted chances. She might think it. He definitely would, but she’d say something kinder and less truthful and he’d just nod and say that he understood.

He’d mean it, too.

But.

There was a chance. However slight, there was some chance that she’d listen to what he had to say, about all that he saw in her, and all that he wanted, and how she made him feel so different, and then she’d say that she didn’t mind, or even that she felt the same way. It was tough to imagine, especially in that dimly lit kitchen.

It’s somewhat easier to imagine it now that she’s clinging to him on the back of his bike, head resting against the back of his shoulders while the kiss she planted on his lips still burns in his nearest memory.

He couldn’t give her words, in this made-up memory; this warm place in his mind where everything was different, and they were still back there in the funeral home, her listening to his mumbled, clumsy declaration, probably trying not to laugh at him. He couldn’t think of exactly what she’d say, because she always surprised him when she was so utterly honest. Maybe his own mind just didn’t work like that, because she was always kinder, always a little more thoughtful and insightful than he was prepared for.

Maybe, if he’d gotten all the way through it, and she sat a little closer to him, he could have taken her face gently in his hands, could have brought his forehead close to hers, just the way they did when he first saw her again and knew she was alive. Maybe he could have pressed his lips into hers and let her kiss him back; it probably would have been different. More tentative, not like the firm, confident, yet soft way she’d nearly killed him before getting on the back of his bike.

_She thought it was nothing new. That’s why she kissed you like that._

He could live with that. Daryl’s face burned as he followed that thought to its logical conclusion and wondered what kind of false memories she’d created for herself and what that meant.

_Gotta get the girl back to Alexandria with the medical set-up there. Let the good doctor take a thorough look at her._

During their brief pause to refuel again that evening, Daryl tried not to act like a horse’s ass, and ultimately defaulted to saying nothing. If she minded, Beth didn’t let it show. They were all exhausted, but no one wanted to stop for the night again. In some ways, it made Daryl feel a little more confident about their new recruits. Even without knowing anything substantial about Alexandria, they all seemed anxious to get there.

Of course, they  _were_  desperate.

Fully expecting at least one more significant setback to interfere with their return trip, Daryl was shocked when he recognized a mile-marker suggesting that they were only an hour out. The moon’s position suggested it was a little past midnight, but the idea that they might return to Alexandria before the sun rose on another cold day on the edge of survival was both inspiring and horrifying.

Beth’s grip on his chest tightened, but she didn’t make him stop until they came within sight of the gates.

Even with all their amenities, the lights were out in Alexandria, besides a single lantern––probably a mounted flashlight––coming from the guard tower.

“Daryl!” Beth called over the roar of the engine, “Can we stop?”

He should have anticipated this. He realized that the moment he shut his engine off and waved Aaron ahead with the small caravan in his wake. Aaron didn’t even bother to slow down, or roll down his window to ask. The brief glimpse that Daryl caught of his bloodshot eyes about raised eyebrows suggested that the same thought had finally struck him too.

“I’m not. Ready.” Beth said quietly. “I mean I am,” she added, pacing anxiously besides the bike, hands on her hips. Some growling from the bushes barely distracted either of them.

Daryl lazily scanned the area before plunging a knife into a walker caught back behind the trees, while Beth kept watch out of habit, to make sure it was just one of them.

“I’m so ready,” she corrected, chewing on her lip. “I just.” She shrugged and her eyes filled with tears. “How do I put this behind me?”

He got it, a little. She wasn’t quite emotionally prepared, but how could you be? For something like this? He didn’t know what to say to make her feel better, but maybe it wasn’t the kind of moment where it was even possible to feel better about any of it. Maybe this was supposed to be the spiritual equivalent of pulling a dagger from a grave wound. He couldn’t spare her that.

Daryl couldn’t be sure when he’d started walking towards her, but Beth definitely hadn’t moved, and suddenly he found himself an inch away from her; she was so close that her slightly bowed head seemed anxious to rest against his chest. He lifted the backs of his fingers up to her cheek, ghosting along the clean line cutting its way down her scarred and dirty face.

  Almost on instinct, his hand finds its way down against the black bandana still hanging around her throat and without even putting the slightest amount of pressure against the tip of her chin, she lifted her face up to look at him straight on. He drinks in her eyes a moment, secure in the knowledge that the next few hours of her life are going to be emotionally exhausting; it’s going to be wonderful, and it’s going to hurt, and if there’s anything he can do to help––hell, there probably isn’t.

Staring into her eyes, even in the pitch black night, there’s so much there that he can read, without her having a say a single word. He wonders if his eyes give away as much. “You’ve got this, Greene,” he mutters. It’s a weak offering, but it’s all he has, and he means it. She’s trembling, she’s unsure, that confidence that boosted her up earlier has all melted away.

He finds himself hesitating, it was always going to be a weakness. His hands fist, one curling into the ends of her hair brushing sweetly against her collarbone and the other by his side. His lips brush against hers briefly as he almost thinks better of it and steps away, breath caught in his throat. But just that quick, soft feel of her, the hint of a taste of her in the breath between them––it’s too much to resist, and she’s leaning into him. He picks up on the tiniest gasp that she tries to stifle before he slants his mouth against hers.

Beth’s fingers curl through his hair, and his nervous hands find their place, resting against the small of her back.

A ways ahead, he can hear the gates opening, and Aaron’s voice saying something urgently to someone. They made it, and there’s still a lot more to deal with, and maybe this wasn’t the time, but Daryl is through hesitating. Even if he’s not good enough for her, even if she just needs a little boost of confidence right now, and even if, for her, this moment is just about needing to know that someone sees her, wants her, and that she was worth all of it, he can’t trade it away. It means too much to him that she’d ever, under any conditions, let him offer his love to her. However insufficient it might be.

She doesn’t seem to feel that way, at least for the moment. Beth massages her lips against his, pressing in closer. His jaw aches, his whole body feels like it’s trying to wrap around the little figure curling deeper into his chest. The heady feel of having her so tight against him makes it harder to draw in breath between capturing her mouth with his.

What finally snaps Daryl back to reality is distant shouts and an annoyed thought,  _Keep it down, the walkers might hear you!_

“ _I need to see her!”_  It’s Maggie’s distant drawl, raised up to a quivering yell.

Hearing her sister’s voice is what freezes Beth in place. She pulls back from Daryl, unmistakable concern in her eyes.

She clutches at the bandana around her neck and for a moment, Daryl can see the gears in her head and she considers hiding, some unexplainable urge. She lets it fall and turns her back to him in order to face the crowd, rapidly approaching in the dark.

Alexandria is lighting up, just down the road. More figures are coming into the street, their dark shadows loom up ahead. He can see Maggie running towards the glaring headlight on his bike, backlit by the small city waking up and blinking it’s many yellow eyes.

Beth takes an uneasy step onto the road and towards her sister. A good deal of black soot from the smoke is in her hair and over the top half of her face. She’s got her hair down so that the small bald patch on the back of her head is visible. She strides forward, but doesn’t break into a run.

Maggie on the other hand, sprints straight towards her sister, nearly taking her to the ground as she grabs a hold of her. For a moment they are suspended in silence and then Maggie lets out a cry that rips through Daryl’s heart, because it’s too similar to when she thought she’d lost her sister, to when she  _did_  lose her father.

In spite of the look on his face, Rick is still thinking straight and begins to usher all of them towards the gate. It’s probably too much to ask Maggie to calm down right now and they don’t want to draw walkers to them.

Daryl lingers outside, revving up the motor on his bike as more walkers start to amble out of the woods.

Thinking fast he hollers a string of cuss words at them, getting their attention and making the engine growl again, he leads them away from Alexandria, but keeps it in his sights the whole way, through his mirrors and over his shoulder. The walkers amble after the bike, leaving the small crowd alone long enough that they can scurry to the gate.

He makes a wide circle in the road, leaving the walkers in the dust as he slides through the doors of the gate. Aaron and Eric close the heavy door together, and Shepherd helps them lock it shut. Beth has disappeared into a collection of sobbing bodies. Every few seconds, Daryl catches a glimpse of her small body rapidly squeezing herself between people to greet someone else with a firm embrace. Her breathing comes out in weeping gasps and laughter.

No one understands. No one leaves any air open to explain. There will be time enough for that later.

Doctor Edwards and the rest of the Grady group stand with a decidedly guarded and uncomfortable stance near to the gate, but they are starting to look with curiosity and open mouths at the homes around them, the watchtower, the clean, well-fed people that greet them.

Lingering far back in the road, Daryl makes out Abe, Tara, Eugene, Rosita, Gabriel are slower to make their way to the scene. They never knew the girl, but they saw her body. It will be a miracle for them too.

Beth is sobbing as she holds Judith, he can barely make out the exclamation that she’s twice the size as when she last saw her. He has to take a moment to stare at Carol, the consummate survivor, who is usually too consumed by sixteen different plans about how she should look and act, clearly coming apart as she holds both Beth and Judith’s hands in her own.

Giving the baby back to Rick, Beth squeezes his hand. The man can’t even speak, but that’s about what Daryl would expect of him. He just nods, rapidly, awkwardly almost as he swallows. Rick pulls Beth in, gathering up her hair in his hands, Daryl can see the tip of one finger running over the bare patch of flesh before he kisses her right on her crown, tears finally breaking free from his eyes.

“I hate to interrupt,” Deanna looks grave indeed as she steps into the midst of the family reunion, “We have a lot of new faces here, and I can’t think of a decent reason to wait until daylight to start learning who they are.”

“Please,” Maggie appears besides Beth, tears flowing freely down her face, “Just let me take her home.”

“That’s why I was thinking we should start with Beth.” Deanna nods.

“Lily?”

Daryl barely hears Tara’s broken voice through all the madness and Maggie’s haggard sobs. But he does hear it. Looking up to find her weaving her way through the crowd, he sees that she’s made a bee-line right to the center of the Grady group, where Lily stands hunched over, exhausted, looking at the ground.

_“Lily?!”_

Daryl isn’t even sure that Lily hears Tara before she looks up. Tara flies straight into Lily, who’s eyes go wide before she catches her, a wild cry escaping her cracked and sore mouth. The two of them hit the road with all four of their knees.

“…And her,” says Deanna, eyebrows high.

They know she’s right. There are rules. There’s protocol. There’s every reason to listen well and do this the right way. But she doesn’t seem the least bit surprised when the whole night crumbles around her. The world is locked outside, and for a moment, it’s almost like they got a piece of the world back.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  
> 
> So, I’m very aware that a lot of your are reading both this one and Anno Domini, and I’ve decided that for the sake of trying to simplify my writing habits a little, I’m going to finish this one completely before I work any more on Anno Domini. It’s almost not even worth mentioning it at this point, because I’ll probably only have one more chapter here anyway, but I thought I’d bring it up, just as a head’s up for those of you waiting on Anno Domini. I will get back to it, as soon as I’m finished with this, which should be real, real soon.
> 
> Demons - Imagine Dragons


	11. Jiggity Jig

Chapter XI – Jiggity Jig

Beth has felt it before, in between the ragged breaths that keen and whine; as if they are her last and she somehow knows it. She’s seen the world slow around her, seen bullet-casings leave a gun and fly by with such gradual grace that she could make out her own blurry reflection in the heated metal. It’s a bizarre feeling, one she came to associate with near-death. Right now doesn’t––or maybe shouldn’t––belong on that list, at least at first.

It only takes one strangled sob, choking from under Maggie’s trembling embrace, for her to realize that this moment is exactly like the others. Those were moments when she was fighting for her life, and isn’t that exactly what’s happening right now? Isn’t she fighting for her life, her  _real_  life? The tears make it impossible to see all the familiar faces gathering around her, but it doesn’t matter, she knows who they are. Familiar scents, and footfalls and voices breaking against her ears. She feels Glenn’s firm grip on her shoulder and somehow knows it’s him before she even turns to press her forehead into his shoulder. She smells Judith’s hair.

For a few slowed down seconds she’s only got enough space inside her little busted-up heart to feel overjoyed. It’s overwhelming, the relief of seeing them, holding them, crying with them again. It’s tainted quickly, with worry, with wonder at new scars and wrinkles and weight etched into their tired faces and bodies, tugging at their rounded shoulders. She must not look the same either; a whole new war has come and gone since the last time they were together.

She doesn’t know whether she’s speaking any words at all, or if she’s just babbling with incoherent sobs. She can hear words but her brain isn’t processes them. If they’re asking questions, she’s not answering them. She can’t.

The first discernible thing she hears is Lily shouting out a name “TARA!” and then a woman she doesn’t know responding with “LILY!” the two of them fly into each other, the unknown woman noticeably stronger and fitter than the malnourished, gaunt Lily.

How long they’re standing there, just appreciating the impossible, she can’t say. Other figures hover back a ways, watching, looking unsure, even fearful of all the newcomers, or of the new place that they’ve come to. Daryl is speaking quietly to a small, red-headed woman near the gate, now shut and protecting them again from the horrors outside the walls.

Everything is a blur. They hand over weapons, she experiences that like she’s watching someone else do it. Aaron finishes explaining the relevant details of what they’ve been through in his soothing, trustworthy voice. She can feel her blood pressure lowering as the night wanes, the sun gets high, the tears in her sister’s eyes dry, while her own eyes get heavy, but can’t close. Work isn’t done yet.

“I’ll see your sister first,” the small red-headed woman tells Maggie. They both seem to understand exactly what this means, though Beth raises an expectant eyebrow at them. “Then  _your_  sister,” she adds to Tara and Lily, gripping each of them by the shoulder.

Maggie takes her hand, “C’mon.” They follow after the small, red-headed woman towards one of the fine new homes. “That’s Deanna, she’s in charge of this place.”

But what was this place? In the blue-grey light of morning, the housing complex doesn’t feel alive, doesn’t feel like anything, just another ruin of the old world. Beth looks for the hope. It’s got walls. It’s got a warm look, in spite of the cold light. It’s got nervous shadows with wide eyes. People, not predators. That’s who lives here, and isn’t a place whatever it’s people are? It’s home. Just home.

She can’t decide whether that’s perfect or a death sentence.

Deanna’s house is all golden light, by the time she gets settled in. It’s thanks to the rising sun coming in through the windows. The white walls and clean furniture make Beth feel more conscious of the road dust clinging to her; the grimy layer of black smoke and grey ash. She glances at her hands, in fists at her sides. The grime has settled into every line of her skin. Her nails are caked with soil and dust. This room looks like a dream of the world before it ended, but Beth finally looks like she belongs in the wild.

“Won’t you take a seat, Beth?” Deanna sets up a camera in front of the chair.

“You’re recording this?” she’s not sure why that makes her feel odd.

“My name is Deanna, Beth. I just want to speak to you for a few minutes. Get to know you. Get a feel for where you might fit in this community.”

“You have a vision?” Beth could better see it now, out the windows, the silhouette of the walls and homes and even the people milling around, “You think we can rebuild the world?”

“We already are,” Deanna’s voice is warm and firm. “This place isn’t just about survival Beth. We’re thriving.”

She wants to believe it, wants to trust that her family wouldn’t be here if it wasn’t the right place for them. But thriving still sounds too unrealistic. Survival is barely realistic. On one of the watchtowers, she catches sight of a lookout with a gun and feels better. “I don’t know if you can trust them.”

For a long moment, Deanna just lets that hang the air between them.

“The people who came with me.” Beth finally does sit back against the armchair at her back, but can’t stop gripping the edge of the chair, ready to jump up if she needs too. “I knew them. They were bad people. I know them now. They’re different. I don’t know how different. I don’t know if they’ll make this place better, or if they’ll put you all at risk.”

“I’m going to interview each of them as well,” Deanna nods softly, eyes down a moment as she thinks, “What did they do that makes you call them bad people?”

She’s slow to answer. She doesn’t want to sound ungrateful, or like she’s already thinking the worst of this place, but she feels, looking into Deanna’s eyes, that it’s the best way, right now. The time to lie might come later, but for now, Beth can be honest. “I don’t remember how I first met them. I was hurt. I woke up, inside walls. It was safe. Clean. Like  _this_. They weren’t interested in rebuilding though. They were in denial. They thought someone was coming for them. Or they pretended to think that. I dunno if anyone’s really that stupid.” After the last few days, it finally occurs to Beth that she might have tried talking to them. A little voice chastises her for not taking the opportunity to learn everything she could, before she led them to her family.

Deanna’s eyes search her face, but Beth swallows the doubt and finishes her thought. It’s not just her eyes on them anymore. Aaron and Daryl can be trusted. Now they are all watching.

“They were sick.” Beth doesn’t blink as she holds onto Deanna’s gaze, firmly. “They had supplies, but they burned through them, hurting and caring for people like me, people who they wanted to bring in. To use.”

“They hurt people on purpose?”

“I think so, yeah. They would find people out there, sometimes they were hurt already, but…” Beth shrugged, that was always the first part of their gimmick that bothered her. She’d spent months on the road, and didn’t encounter people in mortal danger all that often. It was just the law of averages. Most of the time, you showed up too late. Or else you encountered people who were just fine, and dangerous. The second kind, you always wanted to avoid, and the first kind… well, you could only help them by putting down their corpse, at that point. “Everyone they brought in was hurt. They had a play: we saved your life, now you  _owe_  us.”

“It’s not like that here,” said Deanna, so harshly that it made Beth’s eyes (which had been wandering over to the books) snap back to attention. “You don’t owe us anything. I’m not asking for that.”

“I know,” Beth nodded. “I’m free to go? But you want me to help you build something.”

Slowly, Deanna’s bright eyes drew a small smile, “Yes. I want you to help me build something.”

* * *

 

            Beth remembers the last time she’d gotten a proper haircut. It was nearly a year before the world ended. Her mom had waited with her, though she didn’t need to. She remembered making eye contact with in the mirror. Her mom smiled up at her over the top of a magazine, assuring her with a wink that it looked cute.

Jessie doesn’t have a mirror, she just rotates around the kitchen chair, her scissors careful and her face thoughtful, concentrating. Maggie sits across from her, still holding onto Beth with a bloodshot gaze.

“Maggie. You look so tired. You should get some sleep.”

But Maggie just shakes her head.

Probably, Beth would be better off not saying anything. Maggie has a habit of not wanting to do what Beth says, purely because she says it. “You’re pregnant. Rest,” Beth tries again.

“She’s got a point,” Jessie comes to help her, pausing for a moment as she once again ran her fingers through Beth’s hair, somewhat surreptitiously trying to find a style that would hide the quarter-sized scar on the back of her head. Not surreptitious enough though, Beth can tell what she’s doing. “Deanna is going to be busy interviewing all day. I’m sure she’ll need help later, but she can spare you for a few hours.”

Maggie glances at Jessie, then squares her eyes back on her sister. Even without explaining herself, Beth knows what she’s thinking; Maggie isn’t done looking at her yet, isn’t done believing that she’s alive and well, but she’s so tired and overwhelmed that she’s running out of excuses. She can’t bring herself to admit that she just wants to keep looking at her sister’s face.

“I could use a nap, honestly.” Beth admits.

“We’re just about finished up.” Jessie assures her.

With noticeable deliberation Maggie finally says, “Okay. Let’s both get some sleep. You can stay with Glenn and me for now.”

_There’s no way that’s happening._ It’s a somewhat unexplainable surge of annoyance that brings this thought into Beth’s mind. She knows two things, almost immediately. The first is that she wouldn’t be so angry, if she wasn’t legitimately exhausted and the second is that she genuinely doesn’t think that living with Maggie and Glenn is a good idea. It’s not  _just_  anger.

Just for a nap though. That’s acceptable. “’Kay,” she speaks so quietly, she’s not even sure that Maggie or Jessie hear her.

The last few minutes they sit in silence, besides the metallic whisper of the scissors, taking care of a few uneven ends. When they are finished, Beth goes to the bathroom to check herself in the mirror there. After a shower, a haircut and a clean, new outfit, the sight is a bit of a shock.

She wants to say that she looks more like herself, from back before the world ended, but that would be a lie. She doesn’t really look like that girl anymore. She’s scrubbed, glowing, prettier than she’s looked or felt in a long time, but that face is still hard and mangled, still chiseled in stone. Her hair is shorter than she ever remembers it being, though Jessie didn’t take away much length; mostly she just evened out where it was hacked sloppily and gave it some more attractive texture and layers. The longest bits tickle her shoulders, still, but it rises to frame her face. The clothing feels strange. She was given a simple pair of shorts that haven’t been broken in yet, and a white half-button top that fits loose and soft. The last time she had something white, Daryl got blood all over it.

Maggie appears in her reflection, concern etched onto every inch of her face. Beth realizes she’s been standing there a while. “We’re just a couple houses down.” She takes her hand.

The simple gesture makes Beth’s blood boil a little, just because it’s the kind of thing Maggie used to do when they were crossing a street together, but she finds she’s too tired to make a point of it. She lingers just a moment, then obeys Maggie’s grip, encouraging her out the door. For a moment she closes her eyes and imagines she is a little girl again.

Some part of her wants to dissect and study this place, the way she did with Grady when she first arrived, and also, the way she had to observe and understand Rick and the others, when they first came to the farm. But it’s tempting to take it all for granted. She trusts Rick. She trusts Daryl. She trusts Michonne. Her family wouldn’t let them stay here, if they weren’t sure.

Usually, Beth could at least rely on curiosity to spur her on, but this time, she finds herself instead just longing for the ability to know without studying, to fit into this new place without doing the work. She’s run for so long, she’s been alone for so long. On some level, she’d never really appreciated how spiritually exhausting it was.

But, she’s not ready to need this place.

She’s not even ready to need her big sister again.

“Daryl said he found you at the farm? You went back there after…”

“Yeah,” Beth watches birds landing on the edge of the pond, and doesn’t look up at her sister, as they wind their way around to the house that Glenn and Maggie live in. All the homes look the same, turning around, it takes Beth a moment to determine which one they just came from.

“Did you go straight there after…?”

“I didn’t know where else to go,” Beth admits.

“Noah said you planned to go to Virginia with him.”

Her memories of the hospital being as fuzzy as they are, Beth can’t really place that specific conversation, but it isn’t an outright lie. She certainly had intended for Noah to get home. Maybe she even intended to go there with him personally, but there had to be a part in that plan for finding her family too. She didn’t know if they were alive, besides Daryl, but if she had known it, she would have counted on them looking for her. A lump rises in her throat, and she decides not to comment on Noah, or on their plans, or on anything that happened during those darkest days. “How far along are you?”

“I think… two months?” Maggie looks thoughtful at that, the statement turns into a yawn.

To Beth’s relief, Maggie stops trying to make conversation. Within two minutes they’re in the master bedroom where Maggie and Glenn sleep. Without turning the sheets down, Maggie lays on her side, motioning for Beth to lie down as well. It doesn’t take more than five minutes for Beth to watch Maggie fall fast asleep. In spite of the fact that Beth is tired, she has no intention of sleeping right now.

Carefully, she rises up from the bed, watching Maggie breathing deeply. She backs out of the room, lightly descends the staircase and goes out the front door, closing it softly at her back.

Now under the full day, Alexandria is a sleepy, cuddly beast. Everyone looks clean and unawares. She sees a few figures out milling in their yards, or else on their porches talking to one another. There’s a watch shift patrolling the gate. Overall, a decided feeling of routine wraps around this place, taking the resilient world and the safety they’ve found in it for granted. Maybe they can afford to, but probably not. Experience tells her no.

_There is a house, in New Orleans, they call the Rising Sun_

The familiar lyrics and tones of the organ carry on the wind, turning her attention to another nearby house where a stereo plays out into the open air. It’s turned down low, but still loud enough to draw her near. Even before she makes it to the end of the driveway, she knows what she’ll find. The loud clang of a tool being set aside on concrete, and a quick whiff of motor-oil are all the suggestion she needs.

Daryl has the garage door open, and he’s beside his bike. After such a long journey, it makes sense that he might want to change out the oil and check up on it’s more sensitive components.

He doesn’t notice her right away, and she watches him with a safe distance stretched out between them. As she draws quietly near, his careful eyes are intent on the task in front of him. He rubs a smudge of grease from his palm into a red rag. His hair is wet, not yet dry from a shower. It looks especially long and dark with the weight of the water, but he hasn’t bother to push it back out of his face much. He’s changed out of his black, ragged clothing, stiff with dust from the road; instead he wears a pair of jeans that actually fit him (a sweet find) and a clean grey Henley. She wonders why  _he_  isn’t in bed, catching up on all the sleep they lost, during the long run home.

When he notices her, she can tell that he wonders the same thing about her, but only for an instant. He freezes, like a stag that has caught her watching him in his natural habitat. Then he drops the rag on the seat of the bike and takes a few quick strides towards her, slowing down considerably as he leaves the shade of the garage. “S’alright?” he grumbles.

She ought to smile, but part of her enjoys just looking at his face as he looks at her. He doesn’t betray concern for her, the way she’d feared he would. That moment that she nearly died doesn’t seem to be replaying in his intent eyes. Alexandria burns in his periphery and Beth understands, all too well, what a difficult adjustment it must have been for him to come live here. This place is so wholly civilized, almost like the town itself is in denial about what was outside its walls. Does he have many new friends? She hopes so. She’s already seen that he has Aaron. He has his bike and this garage. Now he has her, and looking at those eyes, he might even know it.

When she doesn’t answer him, Daryl takes a couple of steps forward, and lifts a gentle hand to her face, his thumb ghosts over the faded bullet wound just below her hairline. “I made an appointment with the doctor. He said to give him a day to tour the facilities and get to know his station, but he wants to check you out tomorrow. Sounds like it’s just…” Daryl shrugs, “To make people feel better, I guess. You’ve been fine for this long, so, that means you’re prob’ly good.” He seems a little nervous as he talks about it.

Beth wants to bark out in laughter. A doctor’s appointment? A superfluous check-up even? How normal.

“I didn’t mention what you said about the memories though,” Daryl admits, hands trying to find his pockets and then working their way out again as he shifts his stance. “Maybe, he’ll wanna hear about that.” He stops babbling, stares at her. He doesn’t seem uncomfortable though, or unsure the way she worried he might. Mostly, he just seems like he’s full of things he wants to say. “S’alright though, ain’t it? You’re okay?” he finally circles back around to his original question.

“It’s more than alright,” and her voice nearly breaks, because she realizes all at once, this feeling that’s been boiling up inside of her. “I’m so happy, it  _hurts_.” She doesn’t know how else to explain it. “How am I supposed to live here though? Like a person?” she laughs out-loud and shuts the distance between them with a single lunge, burying herself deep into his chest.

He presses his palms into her back, arms tightening around her until he’s taken most of her weight away from her tired feet.

“I’m  _mad_  at Maggie. Because of that message she left for Glenn and nobody else. ‘Cause it seems like she just gave up on me.” It feels good to admit it, and that wasn’t the only reason she laughed out loud, “Plus, the baby names she and Glenn are coming up with are just  _terrible_.”

She feels Daryl chuckle in her ear, his hand strokes the back of her head. 

She adds, “I’m also annoyed that no one’s thought to take that tower apart out in front––it’s too damaged to be any good no more, and it’s probably gonna fall and hurt someone.” She trembles against him with laughter, “It’s so perfect, Daryl. It’s so beautiful to be worried about stupid things. I never thought I’d be so happy to have this kinda junk to worry about.”

“Yeah,” he grumbles, but she can tell he doesn’t quite understand. She isn’t certain she understands, to be perfectly honest, but she has one more go at trying to explain it.

Beth pulls back so she could look at his face. He’s searching her, but she can tell that some of his fears are soothed. She’ll adjust to Alexandria. They both will. Together. “Something about getting shot in the head and the world ending all over again makes you appreciate the mundane.”

The side of his mouth twitches. He leans in a kissed her on the forehead.

“There’s one problem I wanna solve right now though.”

“Yeah?” One of Daryl’s eyebrows raises, as if he can already tell this is going to require something of him.

“Maggie and Glenn think I’m staying with them,” she blinks at him.

It takes Daryl a few seconds to speak. She’s pretty sure he’s holding his breath before he puffs out a quiet question at his feet, “Who you wanna stay with, Greene?”

“This your place?” she indicates the house at his back with her eyes.

“Nah, this is actually Aaron and his husband Eric. Aaron’s collected a lotta…” but he trails off, face red and tongue too tied to go on about Aaron’s mechanic’s collection.

“So, where do you live?” she asks brightly.

Still red, and trying not to smile, Daryl jerks his head off to the side. “S’over there. Real nice,” he clears his throat, “You wanna check it out?”

“Yeah. I do.”

The End

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, I totally have loads to apologize for. Lemme just say in my defense first that I actually always planned to end the story this way. Nothing big, just… a journey home. I had though it would be less embarrassing and disappointing if I was able to get the whole thing up in a matter of days/maybe a couple of weeks, and then of course it took MONTHS and I'm really, really sorry. This semester has been crazy. And last semester.
> 
> But, it's over, and it was honestly a lot of fun to write :D Special shout-out to my girl Kate who asked me to write this is the first place and then Beta-read every chapter, except this last one because I figured she'd be all busy like on her honeymoon or something.
> 
> I hope you guys enjoyed reading it, and you should check out my other "Beth Lives" fic Anno Domini, if you dig that kind of thing. I promise I am going to finish it as well. Once again, I'm really, really sorry, mostly that this took so much longer than I planned.
> 
> Your questions and feedback are always appreciated, don't hesitate to chat with me if you want to for any reason. I love you guys! Big hugs!
> 
> Annnndd, the final song of the chapter is:
> 
> We Found Each Other in the Dark - City and Colour

**Author's Note:**

> After some moderate begging I agreed to write a Bethyl-Amnesia fic! This is probably not going to be super long and I'm planning on having Beth get her memories back steadily and more or less quickly, since I'm of the opinion that the bullet either completely missed her brain, or mostly missed her brain, just based off of the theory of the bullet's trajectory NOT being a production error... okay, how sad it is that there are theories that start with "What if the crew DIDN'T screw up?!"
> 
> But, a good friend of mine who knows a little more about serious head injuries than I do sat me down and explained that if the bullet did miss her brain, or perhaps only scratched it as it curved along the skull to exit, Beth could still suffer from memory loss through emotional trauma or hydrostatic shock to which I shrugged and conceded "yeah okay fine ill write it geez" so here is my take on Bethyl-Amnesia! Some memories will be stuff we saw on the show and some of it will fit more into the realm of head-canon-y deleted scenes.
> 
> I'm going to be switching back and forth between Daryl and Beth POVs as seen above.
> 
> Please feel free to provide thoughts, jokes, suggestions, criticisms or curses, I love hearing from you guys! Thanks for reading!
> 
> And, as always, a song from my Bethyl playlist.
> 
> The Lightning Strike - Snow Patrol


End file.
